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Book _ : 



A 

TOUR 

IN QUEST OF 

GEJVE*AL.QGY 9 

THROUGH SEVERAL PARTS OF 

WALES, SOMERSETSHIRE, 

AND 

WILTSHIRE, 

IV 

& Series of £tttm 

TO A FRIEND IN DUBLIN; 

INTERSPERSED WITH A DESCRIPTION OF 

STOVRHEAD AND STONEHENGE; 

TOGETHER WITH 

VARIOUS ANECDOTES, 

AND 

CURIOUS FRAGMENTS FROM A MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION 
ASCRIBED TO SHAKESPEARE. 




BY 

A BARRISTER. 



LONDON : 
PUBLISHED BY SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONE9, 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 



1811 



ADVERTISEMENT 



THE Editor lamenting that the Copy of this Work was 
not accompanied with Drawings, as it refers occasionally to 
so many fine suljecls for the pencil, and being possessed of 
several, which, though they have already ministered to the 
embellishment of a periodical publication, yet as they may 
serve to illustrate some of the scenes in the following pages, 
presumes to hope that the introduction of them here will 
neither be reprobated by the author nor tmacceptable to the 
public. 



StGosNBij,, Printer, Little Queen Street, Loader. 



DEDICATION. 



TO 



THE HONOURABLE 

M^LTTMKW FQRTESCUE. 



SIR, 

By the abrupt departure of my 
friend, the writer of the following Letters, 
from England, in obedience to feelings whose 
imperiousness no human philosophy has been 
able to control, and in consequence of the 
gentleman to whom they w r ere addressed hav- 
ing decided to publish them, a task has now 
devolved on me which I fondly flattered myself 
the author's return into his own country would 
have relieved me from ; for which reason the pub- 
lication has hitherto been delayed. But all hopes 
of that event soon taking place having vanished, 



IV 

I hasten to fulfil an engagement I entered into 
. conditionally. In my absent friend's last letter to me 
on this subject he says, " Do with my scraps what 
O'Brien and yoU may think fit; I have sought new 
countries, to contract, if possible, new thoughts, 
and should be happy could I discharge from my 
mind every idea that connects itself with a rooted 
sorrow that I am labouring to pluck from my 
memory, and shut out the past; yet there are 
circumstances during the little excursion you refer 
to that can never recur but with pleasure, for how 
can I forget the days we passed at Holnicote ? 
therefore if any thing is done with the journal of 
my rambler, testify for me the respect and grati- 
tude I shall ever entertain for that charming 
place and its amiable possessors." After such a 
declaration I think I cannot do less than inscribe 
this volume to you, as in doing so I know I am 
gratifying the proudest wish of the author, and 
at the same time affording myself an opportunity 
of expressing sentiments similar to his of Holni- 
cote and its inhabitants, having the honour to be, 

SIR, 
Your much obliged, 

Humble servant, 

H. JONES, 
Bath, Not). 20, 1809. 



LETTERS. 



To Charles O'Brien, Esq. 

London, October 1, ISO?. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

I am much delighted with your series of 
letters to me during your six weeks tour, last sum- 
mer, to the Lake of Ki Harney, which I have read 
over and over again, and which, the oftener I 
read, the higher I value ; and yet it is not so 
much on account of the elegant local descriptions 
they abound with that I prize them, however en- 
riched by your pen and pencil, employed on a 
landscape so enchanting in itself, and losing no- 
thing by your representation. 

Your sketches, it must be confessed, speak a 
master's hand; yet, notwithstanding, in my esti- 
mate, they form but a secondary consideration. 
What I most admire is the dramatic form you have 
contrived to give your letters, by making every 
coach and every inn furnish you with change of 
scenes and suitable characters, and an opportunity 
of introducing your own interesting and ingenious 
observations on men and manners. 

J5 



The history of the human mind for one day, 
thus morally developed, outweighs the result of 
a year's modern tour, whose principal merit perhaps 
consists in ringing trite changes on hill and dale, 
wood and water, mountain and valley — subjects, 
after all, of confined compass, and liable to a 
tiresome repetition of the same images and ex- 
pressions, even with the aid of the most Gilpin- 
ized phraseology, or the pencil of a Sandby. 

Encouraged by your pressing recommendation 
to me, of the same method you have adopted 
in your excursions, and flattered by your partiality 
to think I shall succeed, in my intended tour I 
mean to attempt it, though I am certain I shall 
follow you " hand passibus tfquis" 

Indeed, I congratulate myself that part of my 
journey will lead me not hurryingly through North 
Wales, a country of * which you or I know 
little more than we could gather in, I may say, 
Quvjlight (and chiefly by night) through it, when 
two years ago I accompanied you to Ireland, after 

the death of our valuable relation, Lady M , 

who had brought you up, being your first visit to 
your native land since your migration when an 
infant. I recollect, that, little as we saw of it, we 
saw enough of its sublime scenery to beget in us 
an earnest desire to visit it again, when we should 
have leisure to examine it in detail. But I was no 
less tantalized by the flight through North Wales, 
than by the glance I had of your country, during 
my short stay of three weeks there, in which time 
such 4 variety of objects were presented to me, 



and in such rapid succession, that I had not time 
to form a clear and distinct idea of any thing I 
saw ; so that I recollect every thing as in a state of 
chaos. 

I have heen setting out this fortnight; but some 
untoward circumstance perpetually turns up, to 
occasion a change or delay in my plans. I must 
now wait for some papers from Ireland, by which 
my future movements must be governed, but I 
expect them every post. 

In one of your entertaining letters from Killar- 
ney, I am sorry to hear you quote Ossian's Poems 
as an authority for the costume of the age they 
refer to, as if they were real. Can you for a mo- 
ment seriously think them so? If you do, I flat- 
ter myself I shall be able to shake your belief, and 
overcome your prejudice, by an account which I 
am indebted to Jones for, furnishing arguments to 
establish the imposture that, in my humble opi- 
nion, are unanswerable. 

Jones had it from a relation, a great amateur of 
painting, and a friend of Mortimer, an inge- 
nious young artist, and the most fashionable de- 
signer of his day. This gentleman happened to 
be on a visit to Mr. Mortimer, when Mr. Mac- 
pherson called to consult him about a set of 
designs for his Ossian, which he was now about 
to serve up whole, having already treated the 
public with a taste of it, and for that purpose had 
brought his manuscript with him. He described 
it as a bulky quarto volume, with " a small rivulet 
of text running through a large meadow of mai* 



gin." Mr. Mortimer having introduced hi* ama- 
teur friend, from whose classical taste he promised 
to himself much assistance in settling the subjects 
of the designs, the counterfeit son of Fingal, the 
bard of woody Morven, seated himself between 
Mr. Mortimer and his friend, and spread out his 
manuscript. They went cursorily through the 
whole volume; and Jones's relation informed him, 
that almost in every page there were frequent re- 
ferences from the narrow text to the spacious 
margin, where a new passage was suggested totally 
different from that in the body of the work, not 
only in the expression, but also in the substance 
and thought ; as much as to say, " Utrum horum 
mavis, accipe" — a latitude that no translation would 
admit of, if there existed an original; and then, 
as a proof of genius, by way of literary imposture, 
it is but a poor thing — the mask is too thin — read 
one page, and you read the whole — a disgusting 
reverberation of the same turgid and unnatural 
ideas! specious bombast! 

The air you sent me, entitled Dermofs Welcome, 
is an exquisite relic of your ancient music, though 
Jones, who is my oracle in all things relating to 
Wales, will have it to be of Cambrian origin, 
borrowed, if not stolen, from the musical treasures, 
which Grufvdd ap Cynan carried with him to Ire- 
land, where he long- remained a fugitive; for 
Jones says, he has, in a manuscript collection of 
Welsh music in his possession, an air so much akin 
to it, in name and subject, that he makes no 
doubt but they are of one family. His air is called. 



Cresaw Cynan, Cynan's Welcome ; whereas yours, 
altered by the Irish, bears a title rather more ap- 
propriate, and justly complimentary to Dermot, 
their monarch, at whose couit the distressed prince 
of North Wales found refuge ; the only difference 
is in the name, the one applying to the person 
giving, the other to the person receiving the wel- 
come. 

I know vour country contends for having been 
the instructor of Wales as to music ; but Jones as 
strenuously insists, that all the harmony you boast 
of may be dated from Grufydd ap Cynan's sojourn 
amongst you. I recollect to have heard the late 
Mr. Barthelemon, from whom I once took lessons 
on the violin, say, that music among the Welsh 
was reduced to a science before it was scarcely 
known or cultivated in any other part of Europe, 
and that some of the most beautiful passages in 
Corelli's works were evidently garbled from Welsh 
music, which perhaps he might have picked up in 
Britainy. He likewise told me, that he was then 
employed in translating some curious Welsh music, 
from the most ancient notation to the modern 
gamut, being the only man perhaps in the king- 
dom, or in Europe, equal to the task. 

I believe this is the first time you have heard 
of my attempting to become a musician; and you 
may be induced to ask, knowing I do not play, 
why I shrunk from it. I found I had mistaken 
my talents and my instrument, for the violin ad- 
mits of no mediocrity ; you should play well, or 
not at all; and to excel required more time than I 

u3 



could afford, and more genius and perseverance 
than I was master of. 

Io Paean !— I have, since you heard from me, com- 
menced my debut at Westminster, by making* a 
motion in the court of King's Bench last Trinity 
Term; but, alas! I rind too late, that I have as much 
mistaken my profession as I did my instrument 
when I conceited that I should have proved a 
violin-player. You gave me credit for being a 
dashing impudent fellow when at College and the 
Temple ; and in our little circle, not the most silent 
and saturnine, I was as loquacious, voluble, and 
argumentative, as the best of you; and yet to 
think of this paltry motion, unhinged me for a 
week. I literally lost my sight and hearing for a 
few minutes, and how my tongue did its office I 
know not. Do you think I shall ever get the 
better of it, and that my nerves will recover their 
tone ? I fear not ; for, by way of further proba- 
tion, I went the Home Circuit, and held a brief as 
opening counsel ; but in this essay was not more 
successful than in the former; for if I did see 
and hear at all, I saw double, and heard wrongly 
and indistinctly. The Chief Baron seemed to me 
like Ben Lomond capped with snow; and little 

K s by my side outmeasured, to my confused 

vision, the giants at Guildhall ; and to my ears 
their weak treble was like distant thunder. What 
enviable assurance has little Nosy, as we used to 
call him, of Gray's Inn, whom you and I remem- 
ber three years ago an attorney's runner, coming 
with cases and instructions to the pleader's office 



we were at, and who, with no learning, law, of 
language, blunders on through thick and thin, hap- 
pily insensible to his defects, is never thrown 
off his centre, and in this nice discriminating age, 
by mere dint of impudence, may arrive at the 
honour of being clad in scarlet and ermine ! I 
was told, that once on the circuit, when he was 
misaccenting words, making false concords, and 
widely misnaming such technical terms in the law 
as are derived from French or the dead languages, 
a brother barrister near him, feeling for the dig- 
nity of the profession, kindly, in a whisper, set 
him to rights; but, with contempt for his prompter, 
and in defiance of accent, quantity, and grammar, 
he continued to exult in reiterating the same blun- 
ders, reminding me of the man who, when, at a 
fashionable table he was not accustomed to, he was 
eating the wrong end of the asparagus, and was 
advertised of his error by his neighbour, angrily, 
with an oath, replied, Why can't I eat which end 
I please? 

I wish you to consider this letter as a contract, 
wherein I engage to give you, in an epistolary 
form, an account of my intended journey, on the 
model of yours, as well as I can assimilate my style 
and manner to it; my dramatis persona 4 , I am 
aware, will not match yours, for, like a well- 
established manager, you carried your itinerant 
company with you, whereas I must, in general, 
trust to casualty for actors ; so that many a scene 
must consequently be barren of incident and clia- 

B 4 



8 

racter, and in which I^must perform Tom Fool 
solus. Adieu, and believe me ever 

Yours, most sincerely, &c. 



Oxford, October 12, 1807. 
MY PEAR CHARLES, 

You see I am thus far on my long--pro- 
jected excursion, but much altered in its course 
from what was at first planned, it having been my 
intention to have gone through Oxford to North 
Wales, and so, by way of Holyhead, to beat up 
your quarters in the dear country ; but, in conse- 
quence of a most important circumstance, I must 
now take a very different route, through a great 
part of South Wales, to Milford, and thence cross 
the channel to Somersetshire, and afterwards back 
to London, where I have engaged to be a fortnight 
before Christmas. This is my first employment 
after being set down by the coach from London. 
The last evening I spent there was extremely plea- 
sant, and no way inferior to that at Vauxhall, 
when you were of the party. We dined, the old 
set, at our friend's in King's Bench Walks, who 
entertained us most magnificently, treating us 
with Champaign, true ceil de perdria?, and highly 
flavoured Burgundy, some of his uncle's old di- 
plomatic stock ; the sentiment and song went 
round, and we all seemed 

* f Not touch'd, but rapt y not wajcen d, but inspir'dL'* 



At half past nine, with Lord B , our leader, 

we set off to a rout given by an eminent artist, 
where we found, amongst the most motley com- 
pany I ever was in, Catalani and Lady H n, 

the former of whom, to my great satisfaction, 
who was perhaps the only person there who had 
not heard her, favoured us with a Spanish air, 
altered by herself, from Camoens, which she ma- 
naged most enchantingly ; the latter likewise sung 
with a strain of peculiar witchery, and exhibited 
attitudes so voluptuously fascinating, that a be- 
holder much less enthusiastic than myself might 
have fancied himself transported to the Island of 
Love, so charmingly described in the Lusiad of 
Camoens, and losing nothing of its beauties in the 
translation of Mickle*. Perhaps a cynic might 
have said, never did a more whimsical mixture 
ever come together; dancers, singers, posture- 
viistresses, if not masters, fidlers, painters, dentists, 
Jew brokers, barristers, a Hopeful Dutchman, a 

Russian bear, a lot of counts, Mons. M n, who 

was minister of France for twenty-four hours, and 
a quack doctor : nor were the entertainments less 
diversified; an Italian improvisatore displayed his 
talent to the admiration of all who heard him ; one 
of the counts excelled in ventriloquism, another 

* You recollect what Sallust says of Catiline's mistress : 
" Docta psallere et saltare elegantius quam necesse est prober-," 
a sentiment that shows what ideas the Romans entertained of fe- 
male delicacy; a sentiment' that would do honour to the most 
refined age, and by adopting which, our English ladies of the 
present day would, in my estimate, lose nothing of their attractions. 



10 

far surpassed the late famed Rossignol in avicular 

imitation, whilst a noted frequenter of C n 

House gave us an entertainment of slight-of-hand 
tricks, and performed en prince ; and a gentleman 
of Lincoln's Inn treated us with a debate in Par- 
liament on the Catholic question, taking off the 
principal speakers in a manner and style, that any 
person in another room would have supposed every 
member he personated present, the voice and lan- 
guage being so admirably imitated. 

It was near twelve when we withdrew from this 
scene of whimsical festivity, after which I was 

pressed by Lord B , to take a domino at his 

lodgings, and accompany him to a masked ball and 
supper' at an eminent sugar-baker's in the city, 
where we arrived at the acme of the gala, and 
found about a hundred masks; among which we 

thought we recognised the Hon. Mr. L n, so 

celebrated for his original humour in the annals of 
masquerading, as a schoolmaster; and his friend 
and masking rival, Mr. C , as a gipsey fortune- 
teller. The supper was magnificently served, and 
the sugar-baker's entertainment altogether might 
justly be called double-refined. About twenty 
kept on their masks, among whom were the 
schoolmaster and fortune-teller, who throughout 
evidently disguised their voices as well as faces and 
persons. 

By the by, I find Lord B has a. penchant 

for a lady whom he sat by at supper, habited as a 
nun, with nothing- seemingly of the character 
about hex kit the dress, with a charming pers^oo* 



11 

elegant manners (elegant for the other side of 
Temple Bar), and reputed to have a fortune of 
one hundred thousand pounds; a sufficient lure, 
you will say, to draw a man of fashion from the 
purlieus of St. James's to Queenhithe or St. Mary 
Axe. 

What an age we live in ! How every thing is 
turned topsy-turvy! Who w r ould have thought 
of a sugar-baker giving a masqued ball? seeing a 
Prince at a painter's rout, among opera-dancers, 
and charlatans of every sort? or a bookseller issu- 
ing cards for a conversazione ? 

Between four and five was I set down at my 
chambers, and was in the Oxford coach by eight ; 
so you may imagine I want rest, which I certainly 
mean to give myself as soon as possible. After 
taking a peep at Magdalen to-morrow, I shall lie 
by for one day ; that is, not travel, though I dread 
the event of my academical rencontre to-morrow 
night. 

Adieu, and believe me ever yours, &c. 



Burford, Oct. 15, ISO7. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

I resume my pen. Yesterday evening I 
tore myself from the groves of Magdalen, having 
engaged our friend Jones to take a seat in the 
chaise, and join me on my excursion, and got no 
further than this place. The evening at Magda- 



len s was as festive of the sort as that in King's 
Bench Walks : the Nightingale, as we used to call 
him, gave us his own exquisite little air of " Mag- 
dalen Grove" in his best style; and Kennedy two 
or three most incomparable Irish songs, and one I 
tiever heard before, which I take to be his own 
composition, and a man less rhodest might have 
been forward to acknowledge, each stanza ending 
with the " Dells of the Dargle for me ;" while 
Burton accompanied him on the flute, an instru- 
ment he is become perfect master of. You know 
there is no doing at Magdalen's without supper ; 
and though no supper-man, there was no resisting 
the brawn, or the beverage Jones had the honour 
of contributing, most excellent Welsh bottled 
cwrw, the British word for ale. To this suc- 
ceeded successive bowls of punch*, whose basis 

* Our Magdalen friends had taken their recipe, one would 
suppose, from the JJ Almanac de Gourmands, which runs thus >— 
" Sur une partie de jus de citron dans lequel on a laisse infuser 
quelques zestes, mettez trois parties d'excellent rhum de la Ja- 
maique au neuf parties de bon the bien chaud : la proportion du 
sucre est indeterminee." I have heard my uncle Robert, your 
godfather, say, that when he was a young man of nineteen, just 
arrived in London to be entered of Lincoln's Inn, he was one of 
a party, mostly young men, at a house then much frequented, 
the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, drinking punch, the principal 
menstruum of which was strong gunpowder-tea j the other in- 
gredients being pine-apple rum, orange marmalade, jellies, and 
yolk6 of eggs, with a due temperament of acid and sweet -, and 
in a mixture of company no less singular, which consisted of a 
well-known old libertine bon vivant, who delighted to act as wet 
nurse to the sucking babes of his day, and who was on this occa- 
sion the master-mover of the business ; a Nisus and Euryalus* 



13 

was strong green tea, richly inspissated with jel- 
lies ; therefore be not surprised if the night did 
not pass without a row. We first sported the 
squinting tutor's oak, all bearing him a grudge, 
whose mind and manners were as distorted as his 
vision ; then sallied out punchi plcni into the 
High Street ; and though we were not periwig- 
pated, like the wags of Christchurch, when they 
bearded the proctors, and paralysed them and 
their authority; yet the watchmaker, and his 
neighbour the apothecary, had their morning 
slumbers disturbed with something worse than the 
wakening mallet at New College, that so much an- 
noyed old C w * ; the restoring which would 

have required a more than ordinary dose of opium, 
such was the distracting hurly-burly of our cat- 
calls, and every thing that discord could invent. 
Our hour of retiring was very late, or rather 

two friends just loose from College, the one balancing between a 
red coat and a black ; the other all logic, an embryo statesman j both 
still living j the towner now a grave and learned divine, who, if ha 
has not yet got in reach of the mitre, richly merits to attain it } 
the latter an ex-secretary, panting, like a true patriot, to be rein- 
stated, could he kill off those who stand in his way j a cele- 
brated wit of his time, alas! no more, General O'H — a; and 
the noted, or rather notorious D k E d, wiUi an ob- 
scure subaltern or two of his black-legged corps. 

* Bingham, in his Ecclesiastic Antiquities, informs us of an 
invention before bells, for convening religious assemblies in mo- 
nasteries. It was, going by turns to every man's cell, and with 
the knock of a hammer calling the monks to church : the instru- 
ment was called the wakening mallet. A relic of this ancient 
ciiitom is preserved at New College, for the porter knocks with 
a maJlet at the bottom of each staircase at seven o'clock 
a 



14 

very early ; and nature, was not satisfied with the 
little rest I was able to procure, and the want of 
which I now feel, and feel the more, as the only 
stimulus I had to keep me awake was my anxious 
expectation of letters from her, " at each remove 
from whom I drag a lengthening chain ;" in which, 
alas! I have experienced my usual disappoint- 
ment : this threw me, fretted and jaded as I was, 
into a profound reverie, from which Jones, as he 
knew the cause of it, knows the human heart, 
and has himself as much as any man been its 
plaything, never attempted to rouse me ; but that 
I was roused, I owed to the sudden arrival of a 
carriage, out of which stepped an old lady and 
her daughter, almost in fits, yet in a most queru- 
lous tone, often interrupted by the application of 
the smelling-bottle, endeavouring, in the very 
passage of the inn into which our room opened, 
to give an account, to landlord, landlady, and 
waiters, by this time collected, of the singular 
appearance of a gigantic figure, stalking over 
Burford Heath, a circumstance confirmed by the 
driver and the outriders. It became the topic of 
such loud conversation, that nothing else was 
heard ail over the house, and I was induced to 
call in the landlord, in order to inquire of him the 
cause of this dismal consternation, that electrified 
the whole company. He told me there was scarce 
a week passed but some traveller brought an ac- 
count of having his curiosity excited by some very 
unaccountable appearance after night on Burford 
f Heath. If there was moonlight, the apparition 



IS 

was described as of a gigantic indistinct form, 
crossing the heath at some distance, and obscuring 
the luminary of night as with a cloud ; in the ab- 
sence of the moon horrid screams were heard, 
faintly at first, but increasing to a pitch of alarm- 
ing loudness, followed by a violent noise of distant 
thunder, or rushing wind, with, as it were, num- 
berless wings in motion. Many have likened the 
shadowy form to one clothed in an academical 
gown, floating far and wide ; a terrific proctor on 
an enormous scale. And others have confidently 
asserted, that this portentous transit is accompa- 
nied with a strong sulphureous smell. The stage- 
coachmen who travel that road are so familiarized 
to the spectre, and so constantly expect it, that 
the}' consider its non-appearance for some time, or 
any peculiar variation of it, to be indicative of 
some sudden change of weather, or ominous of a 
revolution in the state, and more to be depended 
upon than Moore's Almanack : nay, they scruple 
not to affirm, that for a week before Mr. Pitt's 
death, the sight and sound of this undefined ob- 
ject of terror was considerably increased. I have 
heard you ingenious on such subjects ; — pray give 
me your opinion of the Burford bugbear, 

" Monstrum horrendura, in forme, ingens ; 

Nocte volat co?li medio, tcrrxque per umbrara. 
Striclet." 

I shall soon retire, being half asleep, and shall 
hope that my fancy tincturing my dreams, will 
cause a more angelic spectre to haunt my pillow ; 



16 

for though my Eliza's letters do not arrive, her 
image is ever before me, and of that the cruel one 
cannot defraud me. To-morrow we step into the 
maii, so that you must not expect to hear from 
me till I am got into the heart of Cambria. 

Adieu, &c. 



Carmarthen, Oct. 17, I8O7. 
MY DEAR C — , 

Here we are, all but shattered to pieces, 
after the most tremendous jolting I ever expe- 
rienced ; though we were rather fortunate in our 
company, one of whom, a young gentleman 
going to visit some relations in Wales, I found was 
an Oxford man, had been of Christchurch, and 
was matriculated about the time we were leaving 
Magdalen. Being just entered of Lincoln's Inn> 
he was seriously setting about the study of the 
law, and was going to take his farewell of country 
sports and the muses, before he got entangled 
with Littleton's Tenures and the intricacies of 
special pleading. We had much classical conver- 
sation, in which he shone, being not superficially 
read, particularly in Greek lore, so that he talked 
of Poison and Parr with a degree of contempt. 
He started the subject of that very obscure writer 
Lycophron, which he handled with great inge- 
nuity as well as novelty : in short, he was a kind 
of literary phenomenon, for I never found more 



17 

erudition in so young a man, especially as he did 
not appear to be a mere bookworm, having all the 
fashionable gaiety incident to his time of life, and 
the manners of one who had evidently mixed much 
with the higher ranks. The other, though a quiz in 
appearance, and though for some time rather re- 
served, yet, before we parted, blazed out, and we 
found him a pleasant sensible man, highly entertain- 
ing, and a great mimic, taking off, to admiration, all 
the modern actors ; and as he had, when a young 
man, known Garriek, he gave us a specimen of his 
manner, and of others his contemporaries. He 
said his own figure was not unlike that of the 
great Roscius, whose portrait, in his negligent 
morning dress, I remember to have seen at my 
uncle's in Dublin, which had been given him by 
Goldsmith, with a loose great coat carelessly wrap- 
ped round him, a little black scratch wig, and 
every other part of his dress corresponding, as he 
usually went to rehearsals. Our fellow-traveller so 
much resembled it, that he might have been taken 
for the original. 

By questions every now and then, put not without 
design, and cross-examination, I found that he 
had been at the bar ; but was now laid up in clover 
on a fortune of two or three thousand pounds a 
year, and studied to pass through life with as little 
notice as possible; but, as I fancied I discovered, 
rather from a principle of avarice than a dislike to 
the world, for I observed he never could be 
brought to give more to a coachman than sixpence, 
and never travelled, by his own account, with 

c 



more baggage than his old purple bar-bag could 
carry, and would never eat or drink on the road at 
his own expense, if he could help it. 

As to the country we passed through in the 
first part of our journey, whilst day continued, 
there was nothing in the Wolds of Gloucester- 
shire to excite the eye to look out; and we had 
the mortification to pass through the most beauti- 
ful part of Wales in the night-time, Monmouth- 
shire and the vale of Usk particularly, a scene I 
have had painted to me in such colours as made 
me exceedingly lament' the absence of daylight, 
for that of the moon we had, by the help of 
which I saw sufficient to tantalize me. 

However, the day dawned on us at our entrance 
into another most charming vale, that of Towy, 
running through the centre of Carmarthenshire. 
If the vale of Usk has superior charms to this, it 
must be the finest spot upon earth. The town of 
Llandovery, at which we stopped, lies at the com- 
mencement of this lovely scene ; its situation is 
low and damp, as placed at the confluence of two 
or three mountain-streams, of a very turbulent 
character, and that leave after floods dreadful 
marks of their ravage. The largest of these rivers, 
the Towy, rises among the mountains dividing 
this countv from Cardiganshire and Brecknock- 
shire; and I am told, near its source, in a mineral 
country, the property of Lord Cawdor, it exhibits a se- 
ries of fine falls, accompanied by the richest scenery 
of rock and wood that can be imagined. There is 
.here a g^od inn, called the Castle, from being con ti- 



19 

sruous to the knoll on which the small ruins of the 
fortress, so often mentioned in the Welsh Chro- 
nicles, appear. This castle formerly belonged to 
a son of the great Rhys, prince of South Wales — 
Rhys the Hoarse, Raucisonus, or, as he is called 
in the Welsh language, Rhys Gryg. Here we 
breakfasted, and had an accession to our party, m 
a gentleman who seemed to have come there pur- 
posely to meet our young classical passenger, and 
give him a seat in his gig which was wait- 
ing. He was a man of very fascinating manners, 
seemed to have been much abroad, and talked of 
Paris as we would of London ; had often been at 
Madame Recamier's levee, had lived in habits of 
intimacy with Talleyrand and all the great cha- 
racters of France, and spoke of Buonaparte, not 
at second-hand from others, or from books, but 
from a personal knowledge of him, and entertained 
us with some singular anecdotes, which he had 
such a happy knack of compressing, without ren- 
dering them vapid, that he gave us a greater 
number and more spiritedly, in the space of the 
hour we sat together, than most narrators would 
have done in a day. Of Dr. Parr I knew no- 
thing before but in gross, but he gave us this 
mass of learning most minutely in detail, with 
such a happy imitation of his tone and manner, 
that Jones, who once had been in his company, 
told me, that nothing could exceed it as a piece of 
mimicry, for he seemed to bring this hero of bom- 
bast alive before you. He showed us his hand- 
writing in a letter he had just received, but appa- 

c l 2 



£0 

fently to me so unintelligible, that I could as soon 
decvpher the Ogham character; and I am certain, 
that if it contained the rankest treason in every 
line, and were dropped in a public market-place, 
it would be a hundred chances to one, that an in- 
terpreter could be found sagacious enough, I may 
say, to translate as much as would constitute an 
overt act It must be confessed, that his manner 
was tinctured with egotism ; but how could this 
be well avoided, as he himself was one of the prin- 
cipal actors in all the scenes he described? 

Our next stage was Landilo, and our road thither 
passes by Abermarlais, a beautiful seat 01 Capt. 
Foley, a gentleman of. Pembrokeshire, who by 
purchase became possessed of this place, and has 
iatelv built an elegant mansion on it. As an officer 
this gentleman, at an early time of life, signalized 
himself, on many occasions, and needs no other 
eulogium than the character given him by our 
great naval hero, the late Lord Nelson, both at the 
battle of the Nile and at Copenhagen. Of his 
being a man of worth, there cannot be better evi- 
dence than the enthusiastic respect with which h§ 
is spoken of in all the country. 

Abennarlak, was formerly one" of the castles ot 
castellated houses belonging to Sir Rhys ap Tho- 
mas, and afterwards was possessed, as I am in- 
formed, by an ancestor of the present Thomas 
Job ncs, Esq. to whom the world is indebted for a. 
new translation of Froissart, from manuscripts, 
which Lord Berners, the former and only trans- 
lator of that curious chronicle before him, had 
never teen, and therefore great part of it was to- 



tally new. In this gentleman's late loss, by the 
unfortunate fire that consumed his superb mansion 
of Hafod, and most valuable library, vvcvy friend 
of literature must sympathize. 

Within these twenty years the old house at Aber- 
marlais existed, but in an uninhabited state; and 
the landlady of the inn at Landilo told me, that 
it was so large as to admit of having a hundred 
beds made in it, having been, during the time of 
its various possessors (for it often shifted masters), 
a house devoted to hospitality on the most exten- 
sive scale. It had till lately a large paled park 
full of old timber of vast size, but those were the 
only stag-horned growth this enclosure could boast 
of for above a century. The venerable foresters, 
that yielded to the axe, and contributed to carrv 
our thunder to the most distant seas, are succeeded 
by very flourishing young plantations of the pre- 
sent owner, who most probably planted them, con 
rwwre, with a prophetic wish, that they, like their 
predecessors, might furnish a similar vehicle ta 
extend the British empire of the ocean. 

The Captain's house has been placed at some 
distance from the site of the former, on a favoured 
spot, seemingly much better adapted to command 
the enchanting scenery around it, 

Landilo, as a town, is deserving of very little 
notice ; the inn bad ; streets, if streets they may 
be called, which streets are none, dirty, narrow, 
and irregular; but its situation is charming, on 
the declivity of a hill overhanging the Towy, and 
looking down on an expanse of valley richly 

C3 



22 

watered and wooded, and bounded by an. am- 
phitheatre of hills and mountains endlessly diver- 
sified in shape and character. Having crossed the 
river below the town, we gain a charming view of 
the loveliest spot my eyes ever beheld, which occu- 
pies an elevated tongue of land, projecting from 
the town of Landilo, into the vale of Tovvy, with 
a varying undulation of surface of the finest ver- 
dure, and covered with magnificent woods, par- 
ticularly those which clothe the precipitous sides 
of the landscape skirting the river, and out of 
which rise the venerable ruins of the ancient castle, 
the once palatial residence of the princes of South 
Wales. 

Here, long after the native princes became tri- 
butary to England, and nothing but the shadow of 
royalty was left, Sir Rhys ap Thomas, ancestor of 
the present Lord Dynevor, who contributed as 
largely as any of his adherents to bring Henry the 
Seventh to the throne, lived in a state little less than 
regal, his services to his King being rewarded by 
grants and privileges serving to swell his property 
and his authority to so enormous a size, as made 
him the dread and envy of his time, and to bring 
his grandson to the block, in the time of that ca- 
pricious tyrant Henry the Eighth. 

A little beyond, in a line that presents nothing 
but the most beautiful scenes, Grongar Hill breaks 
on the sight, a spot ever dear to the Muses, having 
been celebrated in a much-admired poem of Dyer, 
a younger son of the house of Aberglasney, seen 
from the road, on the north side of the river, 
at its foot, but which has lately passed into an- 



23 

other family. Thus property alters, and this Par- 
nassus almost forgotten, like 

« Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, 

Slides to some scrivener, or a city knight." 

We pass the gate that leads to Golden Grove, 
once the residence of the great royalist, the Earl of 
Carbery, whose ancestors, by grant or purchase, 
on the attainder of Sir Rhys ap Thomas's grand- 
son, became possessed of all the confiscated estates 
in this county; a property of immense extent, in- 
fluence, and privileges, involving castles, royalties, 
and independent jurisdictions, and which now 
belongs to Lord Cawdor, a very popular noble- 
man, who has likewise a most magnificent mansion 
in Pembrokeshire, and who, during the recess of 
Parliament, divides his time between the two 
counties, alternately cheering them with his pre- 
sence, and supporting in each a princely esta- 
blishment. The house of Golden Grove, though 
not seen from the road, from the nature of the 
ground must lie low, yet I should suppose 
must be a lovely place to look from, as the old 
palace of the princes of South Wales towering- 
above majestic woods coeval with its regal splen- 
dour, and Parnassian Grongar, are full in its 
front. The great road divides the park, which is 
large, from the pleasure-grounds. 

A little further on observe, to the right, and 
separated by the Towy washing its base, the 
scanty remains of the castle of Dryslwyn crown- 
ing an insulated knoll, which must, from its >itua- 

c4 



24 

tion, have been a very strong post. This castle, 
in the time of Edward the Second, proved the 
grave of many of the English nobility, the walls, 
by attempting to undermine them, having fallen, 
and buried the besiegers. Stop a few minutes at 
the beautiful little village of Lanartheny (one of 
the mail-coachman's regular gin stages), consist- 
ing of an inn, a few neat houses prettily scattered, 
and a picturesque church standing in a large ce- 
metery, well enclosed and nicely kept, nearly all 
grassed over, and where the infrequency of graves 
may, I presume, be considered as a proof of the 
healthiness of the situation. A well-formed hand- 
some road, taking an upland direction to the left 
from the centre of the village, I was told, leads to 
Middleton Hall, a large pile in an elevated situa- 
tion, the seat of Sir William Paxton, who having 
made a princely and honourably acquired fortune 
in India, happily for this country, had the taste 
to be enamoured of it, where he chiefly resides, 
and takes a lead in acts of public spirit and bene- 
volence ; yet, though he has merited every thing 
of this country, and is perpetually consulting their 
interest to his cost, so little to be depended on is 
the papillaris aura, and particularly that of this 
county (as I learn), that, after being chosen mem- 
ber for Carmarthenshire, without opposition, a 
little more than a year ago, nothing on his part 
alleged to provoke such conduct, at the last elec- 
tion, a sudden mine was sprung upon him, by 
setting up an (idvena in that country like himself, 
and generally spoken of as most unpopular. But 



25 

perhaps all this, without any reference to the merits 
or demerits of the candidates, was produced by 
the mere collision of two factions which divide 
the county, for here every thing is settled by blue 
and red. 

My fellow-traveller, who, from what I could 
collect to justify such a conjecture, either had 
been in Parliament himself, or vehemently aspired 
after the situation, was very communicative on 
the subject of the late election, gave me his 
political creed, and fdled his trumpet with his 
own pretensions, by his own showing, not incon- 
siderable. 

Our road, all the way from Landilo to Car- 
marthen, lay on the south side of the Towy, whose 
meanders, or rather torrent irregularities, we coukl 
every now and then trace, by the ravage it made 
in forming new channels, and was intersected by 
numerous rills and rivers, issuing from lonely 
vales, through which they hastened to empty their 
crystal urns into the Towy; but the largest were 
the Dulas, a very common name for a river in 
Wales, expressing two colours, blue and black, 
that is, a deep or dark azure ; the Co thy and the 
G willy, the Cothy the largest. 

Within three miles of the town of Carmarthen, 
across the river, I was shown Merlin's Hill, so 
famed in song ; then almost under its shade catch 
a view of Abergwilly, the episcopal residence of 
the bishops of St. David's, and the only one of 
their many palaces left, in a low but lovely situ a- 



26 

tion, amidst finely wooded meadows sloping down 
to the Towy. It lately, I am told, had an entire 
new facade, by the late bishop, Lord G. Murray, 
to whom the whole place is indebted for its present 
appearance, the house before his time being a most 
awkward undignified building, and the road, now 
turned, going close to the back of it. You recol- 
lect the account we had the other day at Lord 

L« 's, of his plan to aggrandize the see, to 

which he sacrificed every present advantage, for- 
bearing to renew leases, or accept fines for renew- 
als, and not being able to persuade himself, that 
" a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'" 

Almost opposite to Abergwilly, on the south 
side of the river, the road passing near it, my 
fellow-traveller pointed out to me the former re- 
sidence of the ingenious Sir Richard Steele, where 
probably he might have penned many of those en- 
tertaining papers that delight us in the Spectator, 
Tatler, and Guardian, and told me that, in the 
town of Carmarthen, that great genius died a 
driveller. Alas, what a fine fabric in ruins ! 

A few turns of the wheel brought us to Carmar- 
then, and the Bush inn promised a comfortable 
reception, in which we found ourselves not dis- 
appointed, after staying there near two days. I 
write whilst dinner is getting ready, and did not 
care if it was supper, as nearer the hour of rest, 
which my poor bones, after the shaking they have 
bad, are in great need of; so do not expect to. 
hear from me again till I have thoroughly exa- 



27 

mined this large town, and have had the benefit 
pf the Bush beds. 

Yours, &c. 



Carmarthen, October 19, I807, 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

I am told I have an hour to wait for the 
coach, and that I w T ill employ to carry on my 
journal from my last. The evening of the day we 
arrived proved rainy, and kept us within, so we 
enjoyed our bottle and fire; and, after a cup of 
tea, some retrospective conversation about our last 
Stage, with opinions of our fellow-travellers, and 
many comments on the whole, retired at an early 
hour, Jones having sweetened the latter part of it 
with some beautiful airs on the flute. 

We Tose refreshed, and, breakfasting early, we 
sallied out to see the town, situated on a gentle 
elevation above the Towy, which, though eight 
miles from the estuary, here feels the tide suffi- 
ciently to bring up large vessels to the quay. 

Carmarthen is a large and populous place, and, 
being centrally situated, and a great thoroughfare, 
carries on an extensive trade. The ruins of its 
castle, which once appears to have occupied a 
large space, are not at all striking, and so from its 
peculiar situation, I am inclined to think the 
wails were never very lofty. The county jail, a 
large modern building, occupies part of its site. 



28 

This town, though larger than Brecknock, much 
differs from that and most of the principal towns, 
as I am told, in Wales, in having but one church. 
This was the ancient Maridunum of the Romans, 
the walls of which, exhibiting portions of Roman 
masonry, were partly extant in the time of our 
earliest and curious tourist Giraldus, an acquaint- 
ance with whose life, learning, and Itinerary, we 
owe to a late splendid and entertaining work of 
Sir Richard Hoare. 

The name of this gentleman connects itself with 
another late publication, claiming him for the au- 
thor, namely, " The Journal of a Tour through 
Ireland in 1806," the amusing companion of my 
present excursion; a book, if you have not yet read 
it, I would strongly recommend to your perusal, 
as a model of a journal of that sort, in which there 
is more compressed than I ever saw in so small a 
compass, and more neatly. The general remarks 
that close the volume cannot fail to prepossess you 
- in favour of the head and heart of the worthy 
Baronet. Before my route is finished, I may have 
occasion to call your attention to parts of the 
Journal as they strike me. 

There are two banks in this town, with a capital 
to support them beyond the dread of failure ; and 
as to attorneys, I am told they swarm, and are all 
men of fortune, how acquired perhaps their clients 
may tell you. 

I was shown the gateway that led to the Priory, 
but nothing more remains of this once extensive 
and well-endowed religious house. At the other 



29 

end of the town they say there was a small esta- 
blishment of friars preachers, but no traces of it 
could be pointed out; however, in attempting to 
discover the site of it, I observed some curious 
earth-works, of various forms, and yet not like 
those so frequently occurring, evidently raised for 
military operations. I should be much inclined 
to think them Roman, and longed to have had 
time or permission to search into them. 

On our return from the morning's ramble, I wa* 
tempted to enter an auction-room, where, amongst 
other articles, books were selling, in the Catalogue, 
said to have belonged to a person lately dearl, who 
had left, as I was informed, very little more to 
pay for his lodgings, which he had occupied for 
three months only. He was a stranger, had some- 
thing eccentric and mysterious about him, passed 
off for an Irishman, but was suspected to have 
been one from North Wales. I bought two or 
three printed books, and one manuscript quarto 
volume, neatly written, importing to be verses and 
letters that passed between Shakespeare and Anna 
I lathe way whom he married, as well as letters to 
and from him and others, with a curious journal 
of Shakespeare, an account of many of his plays, 
and memoirs of his life by himself, &c. By the 
account at the beginning, it appears to have been 
copied from an old manuscript in the hand-writing 
of Mrs. Shakespeare, which was so damaged when 
discovered at a house of a gentleman in Wa 
whose ancestor had married one of the Hathewavs, 
that to rescue it from oblivion a process was made 



30 

use of, by which the original was sacrificed to the 
transcript. Bound up with it is another manu- 
script tract, written in an antiquated but fair hand, 
though on paper much discoloured and damaged, 
a collection of old Prophecies, translated from the 
ancient British language, supposed all to relate to 
Wales, with a note prefixed, importing that they 
were translated, during a voyage to Guiana, by 
a Welshman on board Sir Walter Raleigh's ship, 
and written with a pen made out of the quill of 
an eagle, from a finely illuminated vellum book, 
said to have come from the abbey of Strata Florida, 
and in the possession of a relation to the last 
abbot, then on board the same ship. This small 
tract appears to have been interleaved by the last, 
or some very late possessor, as a vehicle for notes 
variorum on several of the prophecies, which ap- 
pear to be unravelled with considerable ingenuity, 
and a strong spice of satire ; with an account how 
and when the notes, evidently very modern, were 
obtained. The style of the original has something 
very turgid and oracular in it. I bought it for 
half a crown, and persuading myself that it may 
be what it professes, I am very proud of the ac- 
quisition. Some of the poetry is very striking, 
though full of odd conceits, yet much in the man- 
ner of our great dramatist. His Journal, record- 
ing, like most diaries, the most trifling events, 
carries you back to the days of Queen Bess, and 
you are brought acquainted with things that his- 
tory never informs you of. I know by this de- 
scription I make your mouth water. Perhaps I 



31 

may treat you with a specimen of this curious 
farrago before I invite you to feast upon it. 

But I find the mail is come in, and will soon 
proceed; I must, therefore, hurry to pay my bill, 
and hold myself in readiness, after a day's enlarge- 
ment, to cage myself once more. Farewell ; and 
expect to hear again, in a post or two, from, 

Dear Charles, 

Yours, &c. 



Milford, October 20, I8O7. 
DEAK CHARLES, 

After a little more jolting, yet on the 
whole not a very unpleasant journey, I got safe, 
thank Heaven, to my place of destination. The 
day was fine, and admitted of the windows being 
down, and our taking a peep at the country. 
About nine miles from Carmarthen we came to St. 
(gear's, the longest village, for I can hardly call 
it a town, I ever was through, and probably in 
ancient times might have been a place of some 
consequence. They say there was here a house 
for nuns of the order of St. Clare, but no trace 
of any monastic or castellated building meets the 
eye, though the Welsh Chronicles make frequent 
mention of the castle of St. Clear's being destroyed; 
yet what is pointed out for it is nothing more than 
an ancient tumulus that might have been sur- 
mounted with a wooden tower capable of con- 
taining a few men to guard that pass. 



32 

At the end of this long straggling place cross 
the river Tave, navigable thus far. Hence to 
Tavern Spite, an inn in a bleak situation on the 
edge of an extensive ill-cultivated tract, yet from 
which you command a most charming view, to the 
right, of a rich vale, backed by the range of the 
Pembrokeshire mountains, presenting a most beau- 
tifully varied outline; and on the left a view of 
the sea, and Tenby, marked by its lofty spire, at 
a distance. The name of this inn, one of our com- 
panions in the coach, seemingly a good Welshman, 
and not ill-informed antiquary, said, was a cor- 
ruption of Tavern Yspltty, Taberna Hospitii, be- 
ing built on a spot where formerly stood an ancient 
Ilospitiam, a pious institution frequent in this 
country, and founded for the accommodation of 
the poor pilgrims travelling to the shrine of St*. 
David, which was much resorted to. 

I had almost forgot to give you some account of 
our fellow-travellers from Carmarthen. One was 
a mystic, a follower of Joanna Sou thcote, or ra- 
ther one who pretended to be equally gifted with 
her, professing, that, on comparing their schemes, 
they were found to agree in almost every particular, 
lie was a man with a countenance that prepos- 
sessed you in his favour ; and yet, under such a. 
flattering surface, this fanatic might conceal much 
mischief. The other turned out to be one of the 
most eminent Methodists in the principality, and 
well known all over England, having been, and I 
believe still being, one of the officiating chaplains 
to Lady Huntingdon's chapel in Spa Fields, who 



had a residence both in Glamorganshire and this 
county, enjoying them alternately. His whole 
appearance was such, as inclined me to think that 
he did not lack the good things of this world, or 
forbore to make use of them, from a mistaken no- 
tion that they obstructed his passage to the next : 
he was, in short, a communicative sensible man, 
with cheerfulness and good-humour, very little 
known to his fraternity, and, in my humble opi- 
nion, a criterion of his motives being good and his 
life in the right. He displayed considerable anti- 
quarian knowledge, and was a very entertaining 
comment on the various objects that met our eye, 
when they could be made any way subservient to 
traditional lore or real history. The Welsh lan- 
guage had a share of discussion; and on this sub- 
ject he candidly acknowledged, that in Jones he 
had met with more than his match. He gave me 
a very different account of the French descent on 
this coast ; from any I had before met with : for he 
lived near the place, and took pains to be informed 
of the truth. He said, there were circumstances 
connected with that event, so mysteriously provi- 
dential, that, he was sorry to say, had not been 
with due gratitude brought to account : it was 
not to the warriors (for they were at first few), that 
were to " stop them at the gates/' or to the rii 
of what might, and what certainly would nave 
been, in a very short time assembled, that we must 
ascribe the victory. The foe was paralyzed ; Hea- 
ven had issued the fiat — Hitherto shalt thou go, 
and no further: thus circumstanced, 

D 



34 

" Man but a rush against th' invader*! breast, 
And he retires." 

He said he regretted the very impolitic steps that 
were taken at such a time, and calculated to reflect 
on a country which had displayed, on the occasion, 
the most exemplary firmness and loyalty, by no- 
ticing the mad proceedings of two or three low 
fanatics, on the evidence only of invading enemies. 

The surrender of the enemy, it seems, was com- 
memorated by a few seasonable and animated lines of 
a friend of his (for they had men fitted " tarn Marti 
quam Musis'), which, he believed, never got much 
abroad, unless by his means ; but he was so struck 
with them, that, thinking the compliment contained 
in the sentiments they expressed, by contrasting the 
sanguinary character of the foe with the generous 
spirit of the victor, w r ould be not without its use 
in keeping alive that patriotic flame then just kin- 
dled, which he was happy to say had continued to 
blaze with undiminished splendour, and would, he 
hoped, prove unquenchable, he got a few hundred 
printed to circulate about the country. Then taking 
out his pocket-book, he presented me with the little 
poem, trusting I should be pleased with the subject 
and the manner of treating it. 

I think this little fugitive piece has nerve, and 
merits notice, so I enclose a copy. 

What will not Gallia's frantic sons design, 
Unaw'd by laws, or human or divine ? 
A desp'rate crew, yet livid from the chain 
lmpos'd by crime in fell Robespierre's reign ; 
With all the lovely charities suppress'd, 
And ench base passion tyrant of the breast \ 
1 o 



35 

Monsters in whom Heav'n's image is defac'd, 
Let loose on man to make the world a waste : 
Tempests in vain the ocean's face deform, 
They madly war with Him who rules the storm ; 
To them no terror bring the shades of night, 
Their deeds are darkness, and abhor the light. 
Albion may boast her more than magic zone 
Of deep cerulean which begirds her throne ; 
The sacred round they impiously transgress, 
Till Freedom trembles in her last recess. 
Cambria in vain her rocky bulwark boasts, 
By Nature rear'd around her fav'rite coasts ; 
From whose besieg'd, yet still unyielding sides, 
Neptune shrinks back with disappointed tides ; , 
Whilst awful gloom her every mountain sheds, 
And nods stupendous ruin o'er their heads j 
Still with proportion'd insolence they rise, 
A brood of Titans that would scale the skies. 
Her caves in vain unconscious of the day, 
Yawn horror, and Tartarean gloom display ; 
Of no effect their boldness to repel, 
Though the dark adit open'd into hell ; 
Yet they who every trial had withstood, 
And brav'd all danger, take what shape it would ; 
Whom neither rocks, nor seas, nor famine gaunt, 
With all its train of horrid ills, could daunt 5 
Who vainly thought more formidable foes 
Could not exist their progress to oppose ; 
Yet to their cost on ancient British ground 
More formidable still such foes they found, 
A land inheriting, where oft of yore 
The Saxon and the Dane had bled before ; 
The genuine sons of Freedom, doom'd to be 
The heav'n-appointed guardians of her tree ; 
From spoilers' hands to keep its golden fruit, 
And punish such as would her shrine pollute ^ 
The fierce republicans no sooner tread 
The sacred soil, than of Medusa's head 
D 2 



56' 

They own the spell, and, fit for slaves alone, 
A horror feel that numbs them into stone :~ 
Thus Britons triumph, save the work of death : — 
They come — they see — they conquer — at a breath* 
In forest wilds the lion's distant roar, 
Heard by the subject brutes so oft before, 
A bold contempt inspires : but rashly when 
They dare to beard the monarch in his den, 
Soon as the terrors of his eye they meet, 
They fall for mercy crouching at his feet ; 
The yielding prey, already dead with fear. 
The generous victor spares, and scorns to tear. 

At Tavern Spite we changed horses, and alighted 
for a few minutes. They crowded round the 
preacher as if he was an angel dropped from hea- 
ven ; every body knew him, and children 

" Pluck' d his coat, to share the good man's smile." v 

He was attended by a servant and horses; but 
in consequence of an accident which happened at 
Carmarthen, rendering it painful to wear a boot, 
he was obliged to change his mode of conveyance. 
The concern of the crowd gathered round him, 
was beyond any thing I ever witnessed ; and I 
firmly believe he was deserving of it. O ! 6-i sic 
Qm7ies, or even plures. Our disciple of Johanna 
Southcote here left us, and his place to Haver- 
fordwest was occupied by a navy officer (though 
I should think, not in employ), a rattle-pated tar, 
with some humour, and in whose company it was 
impossible to be long serious. 

Our next stage was Narberth, where, on a small 
pointed projection of a hill, are perched the pic- 
turesque ruins of a castle, built in the time of Wil- 



37 

liam Rufus, by a Sir Andrew Pcrrott, a Norman 
ancestor of your once hurling lord deputy of Ire- 
land, Sir John Perrott, in the reign of Elizabeth, a 
man of consummate pride, and no command of a 
temper boisterous and irritable, which exposed 
him to much censure and contention, made him at 
times forget the respect due to his royal mistress, 
and ultimately proved the cause of his disgrace 
and ruin. Yet he did not want for abilities, either 
in the field or the cabinet. Discretion was all lit 
wanted, to have made him a great man. 

Here we left the preacher, who was engaged to 
hold forth that evening, and I presume to a crowded 
audience, as the roads were lined with people, conir 
ing from all quarters ; and the town was already 
as full as on a market-day. We shook hands at 
parting most cordially ; and his tongue dropped a 
blessing with so much of heart in it, that I shall 
always remember him with a degree of affection. 

We were no sooner under way, after unshipping 
the man of God, than the man of war, the sailor, 
addressed me bluntly: " Pray, Sir, do you know 
him who has just left us?" and said, without wait- 
ing for a reply — " He is one of our first apostles in 
this country, not one of the twelve, but one of 
twelve score ; for they swarm with us, as thick as 
boats at Spithcad ; spiritual pilots, cruizing about 
on every tack, to direct souls that are gone out of 
their course. And in this little town we have 
passed, there are as many in need of his guidance, 
as in any place I know of; who have no other com- 
pass to steer by, but that very erroneous one of 

v 3 



38 

their passions. But from what I can learn, and I 
must say thus much in his praise, he is not thought 
a hypocrite; and that is saying a great deal. People 
of all sects like him, and the fellow certainly 
seems to have no suspicious cant about him ; and I 
understand he is a jolly companion ; smokes his 
pipe, and takes his beer aboard, as kindly as if he 
had served in the navy. By the by, I heard a 
strange tale of his lameness at Carmarthen : You 
must know, that, after a night sermon, always suc- 
ceeds that species of religious enthusiasm called 
jumping; and after a discourse from him two nights 
ago in that town, such was the salient furor he excit- 
ed, that the uproar can only be pictured by a warm 
imagination. A female disciple, who had lost her 
leg in action, and which was supplied by a sort of 
jury-leg, a wooden one, terminating in a spike, to 
prevent the too rapid waste of the limb, had con- 
trived to mount one of the benches at the foot of 
the pulpit, and just as the preacher on his descent 
had reached the floor, at that moment Timbertoe 
felt the frenzy of the tripod, and jumping down, 
pinned the saint to the ground, where they were 
engaged yard-arm and yard-arm. Hence his swoln 
foot ; the wits at Carmarthen are full of their puns 
on this occasion; saying, that Mr. J ■ is 

smitten to the soul, by a lady of a sharp under- 
standing, and one of the elect. Others call it a 
prick of conscience." In such a continued fit of 
laughter was I kept by my marine companion, that 
I could not pay the attention due to the fine view 
of one of the principal branches of Milford Haven, 



39 

of the woody tract of Canaston, and the charm- 
ingly diversified grounds of Slebech, that burst on 
the sight, after passing the little village of Robes- 
ton, situated on an eminence. 

The Haven of Milford, one of the finest in Eu- 
rope, is called in the Welsh Aberdaugleddau, being 
the embouchure of two rivers of the name of Cled- 
dau, the British word for a sword, one of which 
we cross at Canaston bridge, and the other at Ha- 
verfordwest. 

To the left of Canaston bridge, on the banks of the 
river, is the elegant seat of Mr. Philips of Slebech, 
marked by its majestic woods, in which it is too 
much embosomed and recessed, to be seen from 
the road. To the right, on an elevated situation, 
with a precipitous, well-wooded, and most pictu- 
resque steep towards the river, stand the ruins of 
Llanhaden Castle, once the favourite residence of 
several of the bishops of St. David's ; from which 
they derive their barony : nearer to the road, 
Ridge way, the seat of a brother of the gallant 
Captain Foley, whose mansion I passed in Carmar- 
thenshire, and gave some account of in my former 
letter, commands a fine and most extensive pro- 
spect, and is a highly interesting object to look upon. 
To the left, a few miles further, Picton Castle, 
the noble residence of Lord Milford, was pointed 
out to us ; but of its beauties, extent, and conse- 
quence, which I hear it is possessed of, at that 
distance, it was impossible to judge. There is one 
thing remarkable in the history of this place — that 
from the time of its first being built in the reign 

p 4 



40 

of William Rufus, it has never ceased to be inha- 
bited by its real possessors. 

Crossing the other river Cleddau, at Haverford- 
west, we enter the town; but for a mile before we 
approached it, we had a fine view of the town, its 
three churches, and boldly-situated castle ; which, 
from its position, covering a steep hill above the 
river, navigable up to it, makes a grand appear- 
ance. Dine at the Castle inn (so called from its 
site just under the castle walls, a large and excel- 
lent house), but too hurryingly for comfort; and 
then through darkness to Milford, where we shall 
not be sorry, after regaling ourselves with some 
choice oysters and Welsh ale we have ordered, to 
drop into the arms of your countryman, Murphy. 
Adieu, and believe me, my dear C— -, ever yours, 
&c. 



PEAR CHARLES, Milford, Oct. 21, 180?. 

I have iust left Murphy's arms; and feel 
myself a new man, " Richard's himself again." I 
am now opening my eyes on the most delightful 
prospect I ever beheld, a reach of the fine harbour 
of Milford, of great expanse; alive with vessels of 
various size and character, in every attitude, inter- 
spersed with fishing boats and skiffs, moving about 
in all directions : a scene more lovely cannot be 
imagined ; and the more striking, as, on account of 
the darkness when we left the mail last night, 
there was no forming any distinct idea of the place 
we had arrived at. 



41 

I write by snatches; after breakfast, which 1 
feel no great disinclination to, I will return to 
my task. — I have breakfasted most sumptuously. 
What think you of oyster-rolls, prawns, eggs, and 
orange-marmalade, in the bill of fare? 

I am just returned from taking a view of this 
new creation; for the town I am in, was only 
planned about fifteen years ago ; for which, a pa- 
tent was obtained by the Hon. Charles Greville, 
as hceres designatas of his uncle Sir William Ha- 
milton, then envoy at Naples. The town, accord- 
ing to a plan shown me this morning, was meant to 
have occupied a gently swelling hill, almost a pe- 
ninsula, formed by the two pills or estuaries of Hub- 
berston and Castle Pill ; so that the present church 
might stand nearly in the centre. The town was 
to consist of a certain number of parallel streets 
running from west to east, beginning at the w r ater 
edge on Hubberston Pill *, and crossed by others 
at right angles. Three only of such streets have 
yet been formed ; but with many chasms in each 
to be filled up ; and hitherto have stretched no 
further than the church, which terminates the 
town already built, and stands in the middle of 
the lower street, making a very beautiful object. 

The church has a nave and two side-aisles, se- 
parated by two rows of columns ; the roof is 
vaulted, and curiously groined. At the west end 
is an elegant tower, having a clock with three 

* Pill, in this country, seems to be a provincial name for an 
estuary. 



42 

handsome dial-plates, on the south, north, and west 
sides of it. The chancel window is ornamented 
with painted glass, as are those of the side and the 
western one, in the latter of which there are seen ar- 
morial escutcheons of the Barlow family in Pem- 
brokeshire, from whom this property was derived, and 
of Hamilton, which Mr. Grevilie, the present noble 
proprietor, represents, whose coat likewise decorates 
one of the panes. The font is a vase of Egyptian 
porphyry, brought to England by Dr. Pocock, near 
which stands the pinnacle of the topmast of tjie 
L'Orient, in honour of the great Nelson, an ap- 
propriate deposite in a church looking down on 
an element, over which he bore the British flag so 
triumphantly, and whose foundation-stone, I be- 
lieve, was laid by him. 

Below the town is a dock-yard, where, for the 
first time, I saw a line of battle ship on the stocks, 
a 74 ; exactly in that state of forwardness, as to 
enable me to judge of the ingenuity, as well as 
vastness of the work. She has been building for 
several years, and has had lately a new keel put 
under her ; to introduce which, it was necessary, 
fairly to lift up that immense body — an undertak- 
ing apparently so gigantic, as to level the erection 
of Stonehenge to the setting up of nine-pins in a 
skittle-ground ; and lessen, which as an antiquary 
I regret, my reverence for the Druid altars called 
Cromlechs, as stupendous works. What cannot 
the wedge and the lever perform ! The model of 
this ship is much admired, and is built from a plan 



and under the inspection of Monsieur Barralier, a 
Frenchman. 

u Fas est et ab hoste doceri." 

This gentleman had likewise the merit of as- 
sisting Mr. Greville in laying out the town. A 
singular circumstance was told when I visited this 
stupendous work, the 74 : that last summer, a 
thrush had built her nest in some loose spun-yarn, 
lying between some of the timbers, and brought 
forth her young, which the workmen used to feed, 
the parent-bird being so familiar and tame, as to 
bear to be stroked in her nest. 

There is here a neat market-house and market, 
well supplied twice a week. The custom-house is 
a handsome commodious building, where I attended 
our friend Kennedy, whom I met to my no small 
joy, just landed from one of the packets, and had 
an opportunity of seeing business done in the most 
expeditious and the most gentlemanly manner, no 
difficulties or delays being affected, for the purpose 
of increasing fees. I have a pleasure in mentioning 
this, as I think it a compliment due to those who 
conduct the office. But I understand the collector 
and comptroller of Milford are real gentlemen, 
and not, as in too many of our ports, raised from 
pimps and footmen, to be an annoyance to the 
public, and defraud Government. 

The principal inn at which the mail stops, and 
where the packets land their passengers, is on a 
prodigious scale, with an airy yard, extensive sta- 
bling, and every otlice attached and detached, that 



' 44. 

can be wanted as an appendage to so large a con- 
cern. There is likewise a billiard-room indepen- 
dent of the house, much frequented, particularly 
by those, who out of it have not two ideas, scarcely 
vegetate, and who never would have learned their 
alphabet if the Q had not been in it. There is 
another inn just opened, where there is a reading- 
room, and I believe a book-club; an establishment, 
I think likely to take much, in a town like this, 
inhabited by several wealthy genteel people, with- 
out employ, and who have nothing to do but to 
seek how to vary their amusement. 

On the other side of the estuary or pill, to the west 
of the new town, lies the old town called Hubberston 
Making, in the parish of that name : the church 
being about half a mile off. The new town is in the 
parish of Stanton, above a mile off; and this dis- 
tance from the mother-church was, I presume, one 
of the principal reasons with the noble proprietor 
of this place, for erecting the handsome edifice I 
have above described. 

I lay down my pen, perhaps to take it up before 
I sleep ; dinner being announced, which boasts for 
its first dish, soals, and a John Dory, with oyster- 
sauce. What a land we live in! or rather, what a 
sea to fish from ! 

I now have to tell you, that we have feasted 
most luxuriously — excellent fish, and true Welsh 
mutton ; and by way of remove, a woodcock, the 
first shot here this season. Our wine too was not 
despicable, and bottled porter most excellent. We 
had no sooner finished our wine, than our attention 



45 

was excited by an account, that the comet was to 
be seen. All the company in the house was out in an 
instant, and various were the reports of its size and 
course, no two agreeing. A general burst of laughter 
was produced, by what fell from a rosy-gilled gen- 
tleman farmer, who had just joined the group of 
star-gazers, and bawled out in the singular dialect 
of that district of Pembrokeshire — "Bleady (which 
I suppose to be a corruption of By our Lady), I 
should like mainly to zee this zame comet, which the 
Cambrian (a provincial paper) says, in the begin- 
ning of the night, always appears in bootes, though 
I take it, if it be in thicky part of the sky, that, 
good vokes, you are pointing to, it wears a thick 
great coat too, for ifacks I can zee nothing but 
darkness.*' I fancied I saw in the south-west, a 
pale light, surrounded by an extensive halo, that 
seemed to dilate with bright coruscations, and as 
often contract. Its declination was pretty rapid to- 
wards the north-west, this being about nine o'clock. 
Several were croaking, and supposed that invasion, 
pestilence, and famine, were at hand; some, with 
more consolation, hoped it might portend the 
death of Buonaparte, whilst the greatest number, 
like Croaker, in the play of the " Goodnaturcd 
Man," shook their heads, and wished all might be 
Well this time twelvemonth. As to me, I have 
nothing of the Croaker about me, and am deter- 
mined to enjoy the present moment with thankful- 
ness, which is the only point of time we pan c 'I 
ours, and yet, if we consider, the present time : 
fallacy; time, that is ever in transitu, can't bf 



46 

present, it must be either past or future, and that 
past never to be recalled, and that future no sooner 
come than gone. The Hebrew tongue is said not 
to have a proper present tense, and the reason is 
evident. 

As to the heavenly bodies, perhaps it may be 
presumption in man to push his inquiries too far. 
What was of use to the world, that great astrono- 
mer, Sir Isaac Newton was gifted to explain and 
demonstrate. The course of the comets was be- 
yond even his reach ; that being the case, I trust 
it is not impiety to think, that a more intimate ac^ 
quaintance with them was never intended for mor- 
tals. 

Our evening passed quietly in conversation 
over our tea; a repast, which, as we had no 
lady to induce ceremony, was protracted, to my 
heart's content, to a late hour. Our chief subject 
was a recapitulation of our journey, enlivened with 
many pertinent etymologies and observations from 
my companion, respecting British names of places, 
minutely illustrative of their situation and cha- 
racter, whether towns, rivers, or mountains ; there 
being scarce an appellative in that language for 
any thing, that is not perfectly appropriate and 
expressive of its nature and quality. I had al- 
ways conceived a prejudice against the Welsh lan- 
guage, as the Jiarshest and most guttural of any; 
and what I heard spoken in my rapid transit 
through the country, did not in the least contri- 
bute to remove it; but in justice I must remark, 
that what I heard, was in the lowest colloquial 



47 

< r vie, the patois of the peasant, which to an ear 
unformed could not fail to sound discordantly : 
but when Mr. Jones spoke it as a scholar and a 
gentleman, I found I had pronounced my judg- 
ment too hastily, especially after he had favoured 
me with two very different specimens, a hunting* 
and an amatory song; the one sonorous without 
harshness, and the other most meltingly tender. 
I understand that the two greatest stumbling- 
blocks to the pronunciation of the Welsh are, the 
double d and the ch, the only gutturals in it; 
whereas the Spanish has no less than three guttu- 
rals — the g, the j, and the x ; yet who, for the 
sake of reading Don Quixote in the original, 
would be deterred from learning that noble lan- 
guage? The double d seems to have no difficulty, 
being pronounced as th in booth, soothe. My 
Welsh critic and friend has retired some time, 
and the stroke of twelve points out to me the ne- 
cessity of rest : then adieu for to-night, and be- 
lieve me, asleep or awake, ever yours, &c. 



Milford, Oct. 22, ISO;, 
DEAR CHARLES, 

I have once more, thank God, seen ano- 
ther day, though after a night that I thought 
would have put a period to my existence ; for in 
consequence of a change of bed, meant respect- 
fully, I was literally down stewed —^strscd down* 



48 

I wish there was an act of parliament prohibiting 
the use of feathers, which I think would contri- 
bute as much to the health of His Majesty's sub- 
jects, as to 

f« Hurl the thunder of the laws on gin." 

A feather-fever I dread like the plague, for, 
alas ! my nerves will feel it for a week ; and to 
iit me to encounter what I have to go 
through for these three weeks to come, I 
have occasion for my nerves in their best tone. 
You partly know my business in this part of the 
country, as, before you left town, I mentioned the 
death of a person of the name of Holford, as he 
w as called, though he always wrote it Hw If or del; 
who dying intestate, and possessed of a consider- 
able property, real and personal, without any 
known near relation, has stirred much genealogical 
inquiry, in which I am not a little interested, as 
my grandmother was one of his name, and un- 
doubtedly of his family, originally from this 
county, but w r ithin these hundred and fifty years 
from Ireland. It seems, by some papers I recol- 
lect to have seen when a boy with my grandmo- 
ther, that one Adam de Hwlfordd, or Adam of 
Haverfordwest, was one of the adventurers from 
Pembrokeshire, who joined Strongbow to attempt 
the conquest of Ireland, and settled there, leaving 
a brother in his native county, who had a nume- 
rous issue, sons and daughters, who all died un- 
married (as is supposed) but two sons, one of 
whom again left Pembrokeshire, and settled with 



4.9 

his kindred in some part of Ireland* from whom 
the intestate was descended ; the other settling at 
home, to whom my grandmother traced. About 
two hundred years ago, in the reign of James I. 
the last of the name then in Wales went to Bris- 
tol, having sold his patrimony, and married a 
woman of that city, daughter of a merchant 
there, and took to the commercial line, in which 
probably he was brought up, the mercers of Ha- 
verfordwest, as I am told, being at that time a 
wealthy body of people, so that it was customary 
for the first people in that country to bring up 
their younger sons to trade. I think I heard the 
old lady say, that this person was her great-grand- 
father, and that she, when she married, was the 
only surviving Holford, or Hwifordd, of that stock ; 
so that there is every reason to suppose, there 
being not a trace of the name left now in this 
county, from which they migrated, that her ac- 
count was correct, and that I am, in her right, 
the nearest of kin to the late rich intestate : if I 
shall be able to make it out, by eking the genea- 
logical scraps I have gleaned from family papers, 
with the more authentic annals of the tombs, 
which I purpose exploring to-day, in a few 
churches not very distant from this place, namclv, 
Herbrantstown, Hubertstown, and Robertstown, 
particularly the former, as I have often heard my 
grandmother say, that her great-grandmother was 
a Herbrandt, a descendant of one of the first 
Flemish settlers in this province, and owned the 
place called after his name, and I recollect 

£ 



id- 

dfnongst a parcel of little clingy deeds;, which 
since this event I have laboured to make out, 
mostly written in Latin, but two or three in 
French, the name of Har brand Friseur occurs, and 
was induced to think at that time, from the odd 
coincidence of name and profession, that the Fri- 
seur was nicknamed Hairbrain'd. — My horse and 
guide are announced, so I must be off; when I return 
from my visitation, I shall again resume my pen. 

After three hours of pleasant excursion, 
almost continually in sight of this enchanting 
scenery of Milford Haven, but to me perfectly 
unprofitable, as it has added not a single iota to 
the information I am in quest of, neither of the 
churches possessing any thing like an ancient mo- 
nument. From parish- registers I could not expect 
to derive any assistance, as there are very few in 
this country that carry you back above fifty years, 
and from those who ought to see to the keeping 
and preservation of them, the clergy, you will be 
sure to find less ; for though many of them appear 
to be good scholars, they are without exception 
the most ignorant men of the antiquities and his- 
tory of their country I ever met with, their know-w 
ledge being more limited than that of their parish- 
registers. However, I have still the material search 
yet to make in the churches of Haverfordwest, 
and that of Stanton on this side the water, and on 
the other side, in Somersetshire, in those of Mine- 
head, Sell worthy, Luckomb, and Porlock, it being 
known to my grandmother that one of the Hwl- 
fordds had settled there about three hundred years. 



ago, by whose descendants, who intermarried with 
the Rogerses and the Arundels, there had been a 
claim of kindred allowed as late as the period of 
the Revolution ; I shall therefore, after my search 
of to-morrow, either from this port or Tenby, pro- 
cure a passage across the Channel to Minehead, to 
prosecute my inquiries in that neighbourhood. 

Having still an hour before dinner to dis- 
pose of, I strolled to the billiard-room, where 
I was only a spectator, and fell into chat 
w T ith a gentleman who was, like myself, an 
uninterested looker-on, a person of taste and in- 
formation. We left the room together, and our 
road leading through the same street, he asked me 
if I had any objection to examine some curiosities 
brought from the South Seas, and the continent of 
the other hemisphere, which he was going to see 
at the house of a Quaker, one of the new settlers 
here, concerned in carrying on the South Sen 
whale fishery. I accepted of the polite offer with 
thankfulness, and wish you had been partaker of 
the treat. The collection consisted of a variety 
of articles, arranged with great taste, amongst 
which I could not help being much struck w T ith 
an arm ilia, very similar to that in your museum of 
ivory, dug up in a tumulus on the Currah of Kil- 
dare, the Stonehenge plain of Ireland, with the 
difference only, that this was a ring sawed off 
from a conch. There was likewise a flint arrow- 
head, found in a turbary on the island of Nan- 
tucket, precisely the same in size and shape with 
thosG you possess. Among the curiosities was 

E 2 



5<Z 

an infinite variety of singular warlike weapons, 
most of them inlaid with bone from the bo- 
dies of their enemies, musical instruments, and 
ornaments of different shapes for the nose and ears. 
of an opaque sort of emerald. Nature seems to 
have dictated to the inhabitants of every country 
under similar circumstances, nearly the same ap- 
petites arid wants, and the same modes of sup- 
plying them, as far as there is a coincidence of 
situation, climate, and produce. The assortment 
of living birds displayed colours and plumage be- 
yond any thing I ever saw, or could have con- 
ceived to exist in nature; but after all, the rarest 
part of the collection was the Quaker's beautiful 
family ; and I should have pitied the man who was 
so much of an antiquary op a virtuoso as not to 
have thought so. 

Having given orders to harden the heart of my 
bed, I trust I shall be able to sleep without any 
other opiate than the effect of a total absence of 
rest last night. My friend Jones having left me 
to see a relation on the other side of the Haven, 
whence he does not return till to-morrow, I have 
no inducement to protract my vigils, but shall 
give you some farther account of myself to-mor- 
row. In the mean time believe me to be, &c. 



Milford, October 22, 180?. 
MY BEAR CHARLES, 

While supper is getting ready I sit down 
to teeount this day's operations. Soon after 



53 

breakfast a custom-house cutter wafted my friend 
Jones across the water, for whom, as well as for 
myself, I had secured a horse for the day, mean- 
ing to visit Haverfordwest and its churches first, 
and then return hy way of Stanton to our quarters. 
The morning was fair, and the ride, through a rich 
country, pleasant. We arrived at Haverfordwest 
about twelve o'clock, and alighted at the Mari- 
ners, an inn no way inferior to the Castle, as to 
house, accommodations, or attendance. Having 
taken care of our horses, and bespoke an early 
dinner, we paid a visit to St. Mary's, St. Martin's, 
and St. Thomas's churches, from a minute survey 
of which I derived very little information to an- 
swer my purpose. In St. Mary's 1 was shown an 
old altar tomb, said to have been that of Robert 
de Hwlfordd, the first of the family who died in 
this country, uninscribed as to the history of the 
period of his death, though round the rim it bears 
an inscription about two hundred years old, to 
commemorate an Haverfordwest alderman of that 
day, who thought it, I suppose, an honour to mix 
his dust with that of the first occupant; and at St. 
Martin's the venerable Sibyl who attended showed 
me an effigy of one (as she called it, in her C K am- 
bro-Flemish dialect) of the " Awld Tankards of the 
castle ;" meaning, I suppose, one of the Pita Tan* 
creds, who, as I find in Sir Richard Hoare's notes 
on Giraldus, was governor of the castle of Haver- 
fordwest, under the Earl of Clare, and lord of the 
place, and was said to have married a daughter of 
the said Robert; though as to the effigy, judging 

\ 3 



54 

from the figure being that of a priest, I much sus- 
pect the tradition. 

But I was directed to a shopkeeper living at the 
bottom of the street opening on the south side of 
St. Mary's church, whose knowledge in genealogy 
I was led to believe was so extensive, as to en- 
courage me to call upon him, on a pretence of want- 
ing some article from his shop ; but I found his 
whole knowledge was confined to his own pedi- 
gree, and the coat of the ancient and honourable 
house he traced to ; which, by the by, he bore 
with a baton sinistre. I however did not think 
the half hour I passed with him ill employed, as 
it gave me an opportunity of seeing a very original 
character, with a sort of priggish formality about 
him, and a face that never relaxes into a smile ; as 
mad about his pedigree as ever Don Quixote was 
about chivalry, and never sells a pennyworth of 
tape without giving you a string of genealogy into 
the bargain. Besides, he was deeply tinctured 
with methodism, which mixing with his genealo- 
gical mania, produced a strange confusion. Pie 
was a rigid moralist, and inveighed severely 
against the vices of that town, among which a 
passion for playing cards (the devil's books, as he 
called them) was the most prominent ; a vice so 
endemic that it infected all ranks, but the clergy 
were peculiarly addicted to it, who turned over their 
cards oftener than their sermons. It is not only in 
an evening, said he, that they play, but they kill 
their mornings with it ; and a rainy Sunday is re- 
served for great matches : nay, this ruling passion 
is uppermost in the house of God, a house they 



55 

visit more from fashion than choice; fox it was 
but lately that a lady of the whist club, when 
suddenly roused from her nap by an apostrophe of 
the parson, more than ordinarily vociferous, 
bawled out, " Spades arc frumps" During this 
curious interview a fashionable young man, seem- 
ingly in the habit of quizzing this eccentric shop- 
keeper, entered, and succeeded in bringing much 
more of his oddities to the surface than I had seen, 
addressing him with the familiar appellations of 
Massy and Mus\ and with respect to me and 
what I was in search of, it was indeed 

te Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus. H 

Dinner hastily finished, and a few glasses of 
wine as hastily taken off, we mounted our horses 
and returned the same way, till we diverged to go 
to Stanton. 

We passed by Johnston, the seat of Lord Ken- 
sington, situated too close to the road, and exhi- 
biting nothing to give it a title to the magnificent 
or the picturesque. His Lordship does not reside 
there, it being rented out on lease since the death 
of his father, much to the disadvantage of the 
country and the mortification of the young peer, 
who, I am told, though he is attached to Pembroke- 
shire, and very deservedly popular, has his resi- 
dence in the adjoining county of Carmarthen. I 
peeped into the church, but saw nothing worthy 
of notice, and could hear nothing respecting the 
object of my search. 

I stopped at Stanton, and meant to have intro- 
i4 



56 

duced myself to the clergyman of the place had 
he been at home, who had been mentioned to me 
as a good-humoured, sensible young man, though 
probably but little of an antiquary, having his 
time more usefully taken up in the tuition of a 
few young gentlemen who board with him, a cha- 
racter he discharges with much credit to himself, 
and much advantage to his pupils. Yet at that 
time, as I heard since my return, he lay under a 
very heavy censure concerning the improper cor- 
rection of one of the boys, and was threatened 
with a prosecution. You perhaps may recollect 
what the late Dr. Johnson says on that subject 
when he is furnishing Bos well with arguments in 
support of his client, a schoolmaster, in the same 
predicament with the parson of Stanton. I think 
I see him tolling his giant form (as it has been 
described to me) from side to side, and dictating, 
ore rot undo , when the following sentiments were 
uttered : " The government of a schoolmaster is 
somewhat of the nature of a military government, 
it must be arbitrary. You must show that a 
schoolmaster has a prescriptive right to beat, and 
that an action of assault cannot be brought 
against him unless barbarity can be shown. Puf- 
fendorf, I think, maintains the right of a school- 
master to beat his scholars. No severity is cruel 
which obstinacy makes necessary ; for the greatest 
cruelty would be to desist, and leave the scholar 
too careless for instruction and too hardened for 
reproof. Locke, in his Treatise on Education, 
mentioned a mother with applause who whipped 

f 



57 

an infant eight times before she had subdued it. 
The master who punishes, not only consults the 
future happiness of him who is the immediate sub- 
ject of correction, but he propagates obedience 
through the w hole school. Correction must be 
proportioned to occasions. Xo instrument of cor- 
rection is more proper than another, but as it is 
better adapted to produce present pain without 
lasting mischief. Lord Mansfield once said in the 
House of Lords — Severity is not the way to govern 
either bo}^s or men. Nay (said Johnson), it is 
the way to govern them ; I know not whether it 
be the way to mend them/— Boszcctl. ; ' It is a 
very delicate matter to interfere between a master 
and his scholars, nor do I see how you can fix the 
degree of severity that a master may use/' — 
Johnson. " Why, Sir, till you can fix the degree 
of obstinacy and negligence of the scholars, you 
cannot fix the severity of the master/' 

In the church I was shown the spot that tradi- 
tion ascribes to Sir Adam Stanton, the first Nor- 
man or Flemish lord of the place, and perhaps 
founder of the church. There was likewise a plain 
stone, said to cover one of the Ho (fords, who 
married into the Stanton family. Besides, I was 
informed, that, about seventy years ago, there -was 
a pauper of that name on the parish, and, notwith- 
standing his poverty, piqued himself on his line- 
age, " nisi cum re xilior alga" 

It was now night, and in our way to Milford 
our attention was much excited by a singular light, 
of a palish colour, that followed a church path, 



58 

on ah opposite hill leading to Hubberston church, 
and kept on in a sort of hopping progress, till we 
lost sight of it by the intervention of the hedges 
near the church. My friend Jones, who is not 
totally divested of the strange superstition of his 
country, held it to be a fetch-candle, one of those 
lights known by the name of canwyll corph, said 
to precede every funeral a year and a day before it 
happens. 

We just reached our inn, in time to escape a 
severe wetting from a sudden fall of raii> that con- 
tinued the whole night; and after supper our 
conversation turned on preternatural appearances 
of every kind, in the course of which we did not 
fail to bring the Burford ghost into discussion. 
Jones entertained me much, by a curious nar- 
rative of facts relating to fetch-candles, and the 
appearance of the whole funeral as it really hap* 
pens, the persons attending it having been fre- 
quently named half a year before it took place, 
and some of those at the time in foreign parts, 
and not likely to be of the number. These lights 
are different in different places. At a town in 
Carmarthenshire, Laugharne, the figure of the per- 
son that will die, is seen in white, walking in the 
dead of night to the church, carrying a candle. 
It is only such, it seems, as happen tQ be born in 
the night-time, who unhappily are gifted to see 
those appearances. 

In some part of Ireland I am told, that for 
some nights before a person dies in a house, the 
grunting of a pig is heard, and the brute itself is 



39 

sometimes seen like a transparent painting, with an 
illuminated scroll in its mouth bearing the name of 
the devoted person. Do you know of any such tiling? 
This is a quizzing age : every day begets Chatter- 
tons and Irelands. Tales of mystic superstition 
may be clothed in the most preposterous garb and 
in the wildest style of romance, and perhaps are 
entitled alike to the same degree of credit, whether 
fabricated for the moment, or traditionally handed 
down to us for ages. If we resume this subject, 
I shall pester you with the result. In the mean 
time I am, completely fagged, 

Yours, &c. 



DEAR CHARLES, Milford, Oct. 23, 180;. 

This being the last day of my intended 
stay in this place, we breakfasted early, to have 
our time before us, as it was proposed to see every 
thing in its vicinity that had not been visited be- 
fore : so, ordering a late dinner, I steered my course 
eastward. A little to the south of the church 
there is a small battery, as there is likewise an- 
other on a commanding height above the old town 
of Haking; but how far they are judiciously 
or injudiciously placed I am not engineer enough 
to determine. 

Beyond the church are the ruins of an old 
chapel, with a vaulted roof, called St. Catharine's, 
a name now transferred to the new church. The 
mother church is Stanton, as I mentioned before. 



60 

Vaulted roofs occur frequently in such parts of 
this county as the Normans and Flemings had 
possession of, and towers and spires universally, 
the churches in the Welsh division of the shire 
being rarely, if ever, dignified with either. 

From this chapel, taking a lane to the left, we 
descend into the other pill, called Castle Pill, 
running into the land in two small branches. 
The tide being out, we crossed it by a long wooden 
foot-bridge, covered when the tide is full, and 
walked to see Castle Hall, a pretty villa of Mr. 
Iiotch, a Quaker merchant, who came from Ame- 
rica, bringing with him many of the same sect to 
settle here, and carry on the South Sea whale 
fishery, Mr. Iiotch, I am told, though a Quaker, 
has very little but the name belonging to him, 
observing nothing of rigorous formality either in 
his dress or manner. His establishment is that of 
a man of large fortune, and his family are brought 
up in all the fashionable modern accomplishments. 
The house is not large, but commodiously elegant, 
and the grounds and gardens are laying out with 
great taste. The hothouses comparatively are not 
extensive, for a county in which hothouses, I un- 
derstand, abound, and some on an enormous scale, 
as those of Lord Cawdor and Lord Milford; but 
I think they appear on a new and most admirable 
construction. Gardeners in general are Scotch- 
men, but Mr. Rotch's is an Irishman, and seem- 
ingly master of his business, joining to a practical 
knowledge of his profession a profound knowledge 
of botany. The demesne, though small, consists 



81 

of some of the choicest land hi Pembrokeshire, 
on the confines of which, overhanging the Haven, 
and commanding a beautiful reach of it, is a sum- 
mer-house most judiciously placed. 

This charming spot once belonged to the famous 
Governor Hoi well, one of the few survivors of the 
unhappy victims at Calcutta. After the Governor 
left it, it continued long untenanted, but, about 
seven years ago, was purchased by a wine-mer- 
chant of Haverfordwest, whom some demon whis- 
pered, 

" Visto, have a taste/' 

and contributed to his speedier ruin. On Ins failure 
it was sold to the present proprietor, who has dis- 
covered infinitely more taste than either the nabob 
or the wine-merchant. 

On the side of the Pill, opposite to which Castle 
Hall stands, are the -faint vestiges of some earth- 
works, with a little masonry, called Castle Pill, 
They say the King's forces had a post here in the 
time of the civil wars. 

Following the other branch of this inlet, and 
crossing the isthmus of the peninsular spot the 
new town of Milford occupies, I descended into a 
narrow valley at the extremity of the Haking 
estuary; and just above, where the highest influx 
of the tide is felt, stand the small remains of Pill 
priory, founded and endowed by one Adam de 
Rape, or de laJRoche\ yet, small as they are, if 
well managed, and grouped to the best advantage, 
they would make a pretty picture : but, unfortu- 



62 

nately, neither my companion nor myself have any 
knowledge of drawing, a circumstance I the more 
regret, as I have never happened to see a view of 
this retired spot. 

It is my custom, when I visit any ruins, mi- 
nutely to investigate the casings of windows and 
doors, should any exist; and particularly any 
little figures, frequently found to cany on their 
breasts a shield, with sometimes an heraldic bear- 
ing on it, that may prove a valuable clue to the 
history of the place; but here nothing of that sort 
could be discovered. I then inquired of the pea- 
sants, whose cottages and little gardens occupied 
the venerable precinct of what was once the priory 
church, if any thing had been ever dug up amongst 
the ruins, who told me, that a few years ago se- 
veral flat tombstones, and some with letters on 
them, which the parson of the parish, a main good 
scholar (to use their own expression), could not 
deeypher, had been turned up in a spot of ground 
pointed out to me, now a garden, and that one 
of them was then to be seen in the back yard of a 
Quaker's house at Milford. I was likewise in- 
formed, that a neighbour of theirs had, a few days 
before, found a piece of thick sheet lead, in clear- 
ing a draw-well, nailed on a piece of- wood, that 
crumbled away as soon as taken up, with some 
odd-shaped letters or figures on it. On my ex- 
pressing a wish to see it, I was conducted to the 
house where it was, and there I was shown a plate 
of lead, about a foot wide and fifteen inches long, 
covered over with raised Greek characters, small, 



63 

but very plain. There being no doubt as to the 
metal, I ventured to ask the possessor if he would 
part with it, which he very readily assented to, 
saying it was of little use to him, and the value 
of the lead was no object. However, I gave him 
half-a-crown, walked off with my purchase, and 
left him perfectly satisfied. 

I anticipate much gratification from the employ 
that my leaden inscription is likely to give us; 
yet, on account of some other attentions that 
have a prior claim, we are obliged to defer the 
examination of it till to-morrow. 

J°y • j°y • j°y • — I have just received the fondly- 
expected letter I ought to have had at Burford. 
The waiting for it has seemingly cost me an age. 
Oh! Charles, hast thou ever been in love with 
any person above the rank of a bedmaker ? for, if 
thou hast not, how wilt thou laugh at my com- 
putation of time ! but the period may arrive when 
thy moments shall be measured by the same scale. 
Since the receipt of this blessed letter I am a new 
man, I tread on air, and have no lead about me 
but my antiquarian tablet. And now to sleep — 
to sleep ! — no, no, to wake, to think of my Eliza ; 
to think she lives, and lives not unmindful of her 
faithful wanderer. Friendship, adieu ! yet believe 
me to be. as much as an enthusiastic lover can be. 

Yours. Sec. 



64 

Pembroke. 
MY DEAK CHARLES, 

So great was my transport last night, 
that, after the receipt of my Eliza's letter, I could 
think of nothing but her; and I forgot to mention 
a very material circumstance, that, will account for 
our staying a day or two longer than we intended. 

Just as we were preparing to sit down to sup- 
per, the landlord entered, and begged to know if 
we should have any objection to a gentleman join- 
ing us, as all the other sitting-rooms were occupied 
by large parties. We replied, nothing could be 
more agreeable, as we wished for company and 
variety. The gentleman was accordingly intro- 
duced, who was an officer in the navy. A few 
minutes brought us perfectly acquainted, and the 
conversation soon took a nautical turn. On hear- 
ing my name, he asked me if I had a relation in 
the navy. On informing him I had an uncle, I 
found that they had formerly been shipmates in 
the Mediterranean. Being likewise told that I 
was bound for Minehead, having occasion to make 
some genealogical inquiries in that neighbourhood, 
but was not so fortunate as to be known to a crea- 
ture in that country, he very handsomely offered 
me a recommendatory letter to a friend of his, a 
brother officer retired from the service, whom he 
had not seen for some years, a gentleman of fa- 
mily, rank, and fortune. 

Having travelled a great way, he sat with us 
not so long as we could have wished, but said he 
should be happy to be permitted to breakfast with 



65 

us; a proposal to which we most cheerfully as- 
sented; and hoped he could induce us to accom- 
pany him up to Pembroke, whither he was going, 
in a fine four-oared barge, early next morning, 
and from which place, finding we had not seen it, 
lie recommended it to us to ride to see Tenby, and, 
if we had time, to visit Stackpool Court, the mag- 
nificent seat of Lord Cawdor, about five miles from 
the town of Pembroke. 

The Captain, our new acquaintance, was punc- 
tual to his hour; and, after breakfast, we took 
boat for Pembroke, which we reached in a short 
time, having a smart breeze and tide in our favour. 
The morning was fine, and the river peopled with 
a variety of all sorts of vessels and boats dancing 
cross-minuets. There I first saw dredging for 
oysters. 

The town of Pembroke stands on a branch of 
the haven that you enter through a narrow gut 
called Pennar Mouth. Here the channel expands 
so widely, that it is said there is room for a wet* 
dock for all the navy of England. The shores 
abound with limestone ; and few vessels enter this 
channel but such as are employed in that trade, 
and those that belong to Pembroke. The channel 
is very intricate, and, except at high water, re- 
quires a pilot. On each side, the land, thickly 
sown with rich farm-houses and gentlemen's seats, 
seems and is very uncommonly fertile, being a 
red soapy loam over limestone, which is cultivated 
with a spirit and in a style that would do credit to 
any part of the kingdom. 



66 

But how shall I be able to describe what I felt 
at approaching the castle of Pembroke, which I 
had the good fortune to see to the greatest ad- 
vantage, in coming up to it by water, spring- tide ; 
though seen every way, it must be an object un- 
commonly striking : but approached by water, it 
seized the attention with double force, presenting 
itself on the almost insulated promontory it occu- 
pies, so as to be seen nearly surrounded with 
water, and independent of any thing material that, 
from other points of view, is seen to unite with it, 
and cause an unpleasing confusion; whereas we 
saw it forming one stupendous whole, growing, 
as it were, out of the rock it is built on. The 
keep or citadel is an immense round tower, so high 
that it peers supereminent over all the other build- 
ings, and is finely clad with ivy, but not so as 
entirely to conceal its parts. 

There is a curious cavern under the castle, with 
an entrance on the north side, communicating by 
a narrow stone staircase with the buildings above. 
Antiquaries and historians are divided in their 
opinions, as to whether it is natural or artificial, 
and as to its use. 

Henry the Seventh was said to have been born 
here ; and it is certain, that from this country he 
set out to win the crown, a circumstance he never 
forgot, being always partial ever after to Pem- 
brokeshire. 

This town was w r alled and flanked with nu- 
merous bastions, was at full tides almost sur- 
rounded by water, with an exception of the narrow 



isthmus at the east entrance, and must have been 
a place of vast strength prior to the use of artil- 
lery. Even in the civil wars it was known to have 
held out a long siege, and was thought of so much 
consequence as to require the active presence of 
Cromwell himself before it, and then the surrender 
was owing to the course of the water that supplies 
the garrison having been betrayed and cut off. 

During our short stay here we had an opportu- 
nity of seeing a very fine body of yeomen cavalry, 
who were this morning inspected by the inspect- 
ing officer of the district, Colonel Stewart. They 
appeared to be men whose countenances would not 
be likely to be appalled at facing the Corsican ty- 
rant's blood-hounds, should he be mad enough to 
turn them loose on British ground. 

A sight of this kind, in the breasts of all w T ho 
feel as they ought to do for their country, must be- 
get a new source of enjoyment to every one around 
them, in whatever relation they may stand to their 
country. The prospect may darken, but the con- 
scious security derived from the consideration of 
such gallant and voluntary defenders, is sufficient 
to shed a sunshine on it, were it ten times darker. 

Our companion, the Captain, finding that we 
were not to sail yet for two days, had so much 
good humour and fascination about him, that he 
found little difficulty in persuading us to accom- 
pany him to Tenby, the famous sea-bathing place 
of this country, and one of the most delightful 
in the kingdom. We therefore hired horses, and 
had one of the most charming rides I ever re- 



68 

member to have taken in my life, of about ten 
miles, over the Ridgeway, the road leading over the 
summit of a high ridge, commanding, on one 
hand, the sea, and on the other a rich vale, with 
the mountains at a distance beyond it. 

We passed too far from the famed castle of Carew 
to form anv idea of the grandeur of its ruins, and 
our time would not admit of such a digression as 
would bring us nearer; but we deviated a little 
out of the road to visit the birth-place of the cele- 
brated Giraldus, Manorbeer castle, which we from 
without examined, but could not be admitted 
within its walls, as it has been for some years a 
depot of smuggled goods, being most commodi- 
o.usly situated for any illicit traffic, just above a 
small creek. 

Giraldus's description is very exact, and I am 
not surprised at his partiality to a place, which not 
only had a claim on it, from having been the place 
of his nativity, but as in itself involving the prin- 
cipal ingredients of a charming landscape. 

The situation of Tenby has been so often the 
subject of panegyric, that I shall not insult you 
so far as to suppose you have not read a much 
better description than any I can pretend \o. give 
of it. I think it is impossible to combine more 
pleasing qualifications for a bathing-place, if we 
consider the pure air it must be ventilated with, 
and the clearest sea and finest sand I ever saw sur- 
rounding the peninsula, crowned by the town. 

The church, without and within, is a most re- 
spectable building, and seems to have been larger 
than it is. 



69 

It was' formerly a place of great trade, and one 
of the principal towns of the Flemish settlers ; and 
once boasted of most productive fishing-banks, 
and hence it had the name of Dynbich y Pyscod, 
that is, the Fishing Denbigh, to distinguish it from 
the inland Denbigh, in North Wales. Though it 
now maintains a superiority in fishery over every 
other place on this coast, yet the marks pointing 
out the old banks are lost, or the banks are 
shifted. 

Sir William Paxton, whose seat I mentioned in 
Carmarthenshire, though no Welshman, has done 
for that county, and for this place, more than all 
the gentlemen who boast to be natives of the 
country. He is now building very magnificent 
baths near the pier, for warm sea-bathing, and has 
remedied the greatest inconvenience, and perhaps 
the only material one, the town laboured under, 
a lack of good water, by forming an aqueduct, at 
great expense, that shall effectually supply the de- 
fect; and is projecting many other things, to 
render this place more attractive, by his endeavours 
to remove every objection it may be liable to. 

Here I saw the largest oysters I ever met with, 
too large to be eaten raw, but which are admi- 
rable in sauce, escalloped, or pickled. Mountains 
of shells, the aggregate of many a century, occur 
in several parts of the town, forming a nuisance 
that would amply pay for removing, to be used 
for a manure. The season appeared to be on the 
decline, as I did not observe much company. In 
our way down to the baths, and to examine 

F 3 



70 

curious site of the castle, we were joined by a 
gentleman, who had just stepped out of a hand- 
some carriage, with an escutcheon, as Jones, who 
numbers among his various acquirements a deep 
knowledge of heraldry, afterwards told me, bearing 
the arms of a noble family of this county, viz. argent 
a lion rampant sable, chained or, but with, as he 
suspects, a modern augmentation of two bees in 
chief, whether borne for their hum, their sting, or 
their honey, or for all three, the bearer best knew. 
As his road and ours seemed to take the same di- 
rection, with a peculiar ease and frankness, and 
without ceremony, apology, or seeking a pretence 
for accosting us, he broke out into an extravagant 
panegyric on the beauties of the place, evidently 
a set performance, and too artificial, considered 
with regard to the regularity of its composition 
or the volubility of its delivery, to be supposed to 
be an effusion of the moment. His eulogium closed, 
with outspread arms, and his beaver up, which 
was as broad as a Quaker's, he cried, looking to the 
ocean, " Don't you think, gentlemen, this prospect 
is enchanting?" Promising some entertainment 
from our new and forward acquaintance, there was 
not the least coyness on our part, and we echoed 
his raptures, the Captain swearing, " Ay, if we had 
the Brest fleet in sight, and praying Jemmy within 
cannon-shot of them !" At this moment seeing a 
gentleman in a Bath chair, seemingly a martyr to 
the gout, pushed along, our loquacious companion 
entered into a long disquisition of that disorder, 
and wished to know to what its greater frequency 



71 

flow than in ancient times was to be ascribed ; for, 
3aid he, " Classic authors, who give us the costume 
of the age they lived in with the minutest detail, 
rarely find occasion to mention it. We must surely 
attribute it to our diet, some particular condiment 
that our forefathers were strangers to." — "There can 
be no doubt of it," said Jones ; " what a variety of 
diseases we may place to the account of tea alone, 
and diseases which, perhaps, a Chinese physician 
would know better how to treat than our Vaue-han 
and Baillie. I am of opinion," continued Jones, " that 
the seeds of all disorders incident to man are sown 
alike through the human species, and that it is 
to some peculiarity in climate, food, raiment, ex- 
ercise, or influence of mind over body, that we 
are indebted for calling them out. And it is the 
same in the vegetable as the animal world : the 
rudiments of thousands of plants, yet unknown 
to us, may be dormant in the earth, and only re- 
quire the suitable culture, aliment, or manure, to 
rouse them into perfect vegetation. A gentleman, 
a friend of mine, who does every thing in capitals, 
his motto being ' Quod vult, valde vult,' covered 
an immense field with such a thickness of lime, 
that it might be said to be plastered over, so that 
for two or three years, till this stucco was washed 
into, and became incorporated with, the soil, all 
growth was choked; but afterwards the vege- 
tation was most surprisingly rank and luxuriant, 
and here and there a new species of plants, that set 
our botanists at defiance, made their appearance." — 
" If lime," said the Captain, " could produce such a- 

f 4 



72 

change, what kind of an Arctic crop, think you, 
must that gentleman have had, who, I was told, 
manured his fields with whale's blubber, as if he 
meant to have furnished pasture for rein-deer?" The 
stranger then flew over an infinity of topics, light- 
ing, like his own bee, but a moment on each, to sup- 
ply which he traversed the whole kingdom, "from 
old Belerium to the northern main ';" talked much of 
Opie, British press, Pratt, Peter Pindar, longevity, 
Shetland, statistical accounts, Board of Agriculture, 
omlets, mountebanks, wooden cuts, loves of the 
plants, Dr. Thornton, Bologna sausages, wastelands, 
second sight, Scotch marmalade, and Sir John Sin- 
clair. He gave us the portrait of what he conceived 
to be a patriotic senator, and I thought wished us 
to believe that he had sat for the picture. He talked 
of city offices, city honours, and city feasts, as if 
he had had a surfeit of them, for the latter of 
which he professed he was totally unfit, being* too 
much a Pythagorean to be carnivorous, for he said" 
he had for many years lived on vegetables and 
pastry, and he was so fortunate as to be able to 
boast, 

(e That his wife, little Kitty, was famous for crust." 

In our Way back to our inn, after examining the 
baths, the pier, and the castle, the Captain hap- 
pening to make use of a proverb very appropriate 
to the subject; adding, that it was the translation 
of a Welsh one, our strange acquaintance observed, 
that the Welsh proverbs were said to be very nu- 
merous and very expressive, and he wondered they 
were not published and translated. " Why/' said 



/ j 



Jones, " they are partly published in the original, 
in a work called the Myvyrian Archaiology, a work 
we owe to the spirit of a plain Welsh tradesman, 
a fur-merchant in Thames Street, who, at his own 
expense, has undertaken to preserve the valuable 
treasures of Welsh literature, that were scattered 
over the kingdom, and on the point of perishing 
in manuscript, by bringing them together, and 
giving them to the public in a more durable form; 
and, if he lives, I believe it is his intention to 
have the w r hole of what he has thus collected put 
into an English dress. As to myself, I venerate 
proverbs; I am as fond of them as ever Sancho 
Panza was : they are, as a friend of mine, in a 
poem of his, calls them, 

• Rich drops, distilFd from the wisdom of ages.* 

In short, they are in ethics what essential oil is in 
chemistry." — " The furrier, your countryman," said 
the stranger, " deserves a statue of gold ; and if it 
were to be raised by subscription, I should be 
proud to contribute largely towards it. I love 
learning, whatever language be the vehicle, and its 
patrons of whatever country they may be. I have 
been always conversant with letters." By this time 
we were arrived at our inn, and we were met by 
the landlord, to say that our dinner was waiting. 
The man of letters bowed and withdrew, leaving 
us in admiration of so singular a character, whom, 
on inquiry of the landlord, we found to be literally 
a man of letters, a London bookseller. 

Who do you think accosted me, just as I was 
stepping into the inn we dined at, but our little 



74 

friend Captain B , Don Whiskerandos ? whom 

I had not seen, since the ridiculous adventure we had 
with him at Vauxhall last year, when he was near 
getting into a scrape with the old libertine in the 
pink riband. He is as vain, and perhaps as poor, 
as ever. He took me aside — " My dear boy,"said he, 
" I am in chase as usual — A fine girl ! a fine fortune! 
and no small encouragement !" (showing me a mi- 
niature he drew from his bosom, which he had 
perhaps picked up for a crown at a pawnbroker's) ; 
" a beautiful brunette, as you see — twenty thousand 
pounds at her own disposal, and as much more 
at the death of her mamma, with whom, by the 
by, I am a monstrous favourite, so much so, that 
I think the old lady would be resigned to leave 
this world with pleasure, to let me into the other 
twenty thousand pounds, rather than I should live 
wretched without it. Well, Jack, adieu! you 
shall hear of me if I succeed ; if not, these rocks 
will afford me a lover's leap ; I shall be forgotten, 
and food for crabs. When you write to Ireland, 
tell O'Brien what a lucky dog I am." 

What vanity ! yet here is a creature seemingly 
the happiest of mankind ! boasting of adventures 
he neither had talents nor spirit to engage in, and 
moving about the world, with apparently no means 
to answer such expense, in rather a splendid style; 
and yet he keeps above water, though he has no 
visible life-boat. 

After dinner our new companion, the Captain, 
entered deeply into the subject of farming, saying 
he had done with ploughing the ocean, which he 



75 

found, with all the culture he gave it, returned 
him but a scurvy crop; but that, since he had 
begun to plough the land, he had profited more in 
one year than he ever did on the ocean all his life. 
He then talked heathen Greek to me, going largely 
into the praise of the Swedish turnip, French furze, 
and tares. " The green fat of turtle," said he, " is 
not more grateful to the palate of a city alderman, 
than a crop of the same colour is to land, especially 
if it is washed well down with its due proportion 
of moisture." 

There being fine moonlight, we returned that 
night to Pembroke, to be ready early in the morn- 
ing to go down by water to Milford, the boat 
waiting there for that purpose. 

Our Cicerone, who was a little elevated by the 
ale he drank (for he tasted no other liquor), enter- 
tained us all the way to Pembroke with naval ex- 
ploits and naval frolics, in which he himself made 
no inconsiderable figure. He represented Lord 
Nelson as one who, at a very early time of life, 
had, by making too free with his constitution, so 
debilitated himself, as nearly at times not to be 
able to walk the length of the ship as to bodily 
strength, yet, by strength of mind in the moment 
of peril or action, was equal to any service, and 
triumphed over the clog of body which at other 
times seemed to encumber him. 

With a feast of Pennarmouth oysters, and ex- 
cellent Welsh ale, we regaled ourselves after our 
ride. Supper ended, the noble Captain, who was 
one of the most determined smokers I ever knew, 



\tfrapped us in the fumes of tobacco for an hour, 
continuing, between whiff and whiff arid pipe 1 arid 
pipe, to entertain us with more aneccl6tes of his 
nautical life; and at parting, after Ins last pipe, 
communicated the following remarkable circum- 
stance that befell a sailor on board a man of war in 
the Mediterranean : The sailor, in an action, re- 
ceived a contusion on his head by a splinter, and 
was instantly deprived of every sensation, remain- 
ing in that state of torpor, after undergoing va^ 
rious experiments at different hospitals abroad,' for 
one whole year taking no sustenance, till, on his 
return to England, being sent to St. Thomas's 
Hospital, he was trepanned, an operation not per- 
formed before, but which restored him in an in- 
stant to his speech arid every other sense, for he 
loudly called out in his own language, Welsh, 
Mam, Mam, that is, Mother, Mother. When 
asked if he could recollect any thing, from the 
time he had the accident to the moriierit, I riiay 
say, of his revival, he replied, that he had no idea 
of what passed ; for any knowledge he had of the 
interval, it might be a moment or an age'. — Blinded 
almost with smoke, arid truly fatigued, I must 
wish you a good night, and follow my companions, 
who have left me some time. Adieu, and believe 
me, 

Yours, m 



'77 



Milford, October 25, ISO/. 
MY DEAR C1L\HLES, 

As to-morrow is destined far our voyage, 
we have not wandered far from our inn ; which, 
after a pleasant sail for the greater part of the way 
from Pembroke, we arrived at by half past nine, 
having wind and tide in our. favour. 

After breakfast, our naval friend took his leave 
of us, swearing that he would have been happy to 
have had us in tow longer, if he had not been 
($$igfifl to obey signals elsewhere: sp, after writing 
his letter of recommendation to his friend in So- 
mersetshire, he slipped his cable, and was soon un- 
der way. 

I forgot to tell you, that during my genealogical 
search at Haverfordwest I met at the inn where 
we dined, a gentleman, who had himself that morn- 
ing been to visit the churches of the town, to 
see if they contained any curious monuments, 
epitaphs, or relics of antiquity, with a view to 
illustrate some work relating to that county, he 
professed to be engaged in. The frankness of his 
niarmer induced me to explain to him the motive 
of my visit to that town, and he very handsomely 
proffered his services, modestly saying, that as 
he had some very full manuscript pedigree hooks, 
chiefly of Pembrokeshire families, he would make 
a point of looking over them, to see if they con- 
tained any thing to my purpose; and added, that 
lie would either transmit the result, of his r.e- 



78 

searches by letter, or would wait on me at 
Milford, being a place he was about paying 
a visit to, on bis own account, if he could 
make it convenient, before we should have left 
it. I mentioned the time of our intended stay 
there; and this morning about twelve o'clock, 
while Jones and I were busily employed in pack- 
ing up, and arranging every thing for our sea 
jaunt, our antiquarian acquaintance was announ- 
ced. He professed himself happy in having it in 
his power to inform me, that his genealogical in- 
quiries had been more successful than he had ex- 
pected. He then produced a pedigree, very neatly 
drawn out and blazoned by a young man, his son, 
who accompanied him, proving almost every alli- 
ance I wanted to substantiate. Besides, in the 
course of his investigation, he found that he had 
some of the Hw If or dd blood in his veins, and showed 
me a law case, with an opinion on it in Charles the 
Second's time, including much genealogy relating 
to a small property which came to his father, in 
consequence of the above alliance to a Hwlfordd. 
Remote as this link might be to us or to our com- 
mon ancestor of that name, yet we mutually seemed 
to feel it, and it produced visibly a reciprocal in- 
terest, not to be described. 

As we learned that my new relation and his son 
did not intend quitting Milford that night, we so- 
licited the favour of their company to pass the 
day with us. As they had some object in view, 
and the young gentleman had drawings to 
make, who favoured us, before we parted, with a 



79 

few elegant specimens of his pencil, they left us 
for an hour or two, giving us an opportunity of 
finishing our arrangements, and them time to ac- 
complish the business they were upon, and enabling 
both them and us, perfectly at leisure, to enjoy each 
other's company for the rest of the evening. 

Our guests having returned, we dined on very fine 
fish and Welsh mutton, rendered more relishing by 
means of that most excellent of all pickles, samphire, 
here in thehighestperfection ; and an accompaniment 
of all others most in unison with Welsh mutton, call- 
ed laver, or vulgarly black batter, the produce of 
a fine marine plant or alga, found in abundance on 
the coast of this count}. Epicures are divided 
about the real name given to this sauce; some in- 
sisting on its being laver, from laver to wash ; as 
the plant undergoes repeated ablutions, to rid it of 
the sand it involves in its line folds ; others lava, 
as representing the eruption of a volcano in colour 
and heat, it being always served up smoking hot, 
from a dish over a lamp, and resembling in hue, 
the volcanic fluid; or, to bring it home to the con- 
ception of such as may have never seen the over- 
flowings of Vesuvius, exactly resembling the ex- 
crement of young calves ; a dark olive, verging on 
black. I never had seen it till I came into this 
country, and found myself, from its hue and 
consistence, so prejudiced against its appearand 
that it was with difficulty I was prevailed on to 
taste it ; but my taste soon reproached i 
for my squeamishness ; and I have never sn 
exposed myself to a repetition of such reproaches, 



so 

When I have had an opportunity of falling in with 
this best of all mutton sauces*. On the other 
side, you have Jones's account of its medicinal pro- 
perties. 

After dinner, and a temperate circulation of the 
glass, interlarded with much interesting conversa- 
tion respecting the Welsh language, managed in- 
geniously on the part of my friend Jones, and our 
new guest, who spoke of it with an enthusiasm, 

* Laver is made of a fine marine plant called Ulva Lactuca, 
or Lactuca Marina, consisting of a thin green pellucid membrane 
or leaf, from two inches to a foot or more in length, and from 
one to five inches in breadth, undulated or laciniated on the mar- 
gin like a Cos lettuce leaf, growing sometimes single, but gene- 
rally in clusters, reclining over each other ; but the Ulva Umlili~ 
calls is preferred, which is a wide membraneous leaf, of a dark 
dull purple colour, of circular shape, variously sinuated on the 
margin, smooth and shining, and affixed to the rock or stone by 
a central root. Being gathered, it is washed clean from sand 
and slime, and left to drain between two tiles j then it is shred 
small, kneaded like dough, and made up into balls, which is called 
Bara Llavan, laver bread. Llavan is a strand in the Welsh lan- 
guage. As a medicine, it is a fine aperient and antiscorbutic. The 
inhabitants of the Hebrides eat it with pepper and vinegar, when 
stewed, adding leeks and onions -, they ascribe to it an anodyne 
power, and bind the leaves about their temples, to ease violent 
head-achs, and procure sleep. In the account given of it in Ed- 
ward Lwyd's Additions to Gibson's Camden (which Gough in 
his edition erroneously ascribes to the Bishop), is the following 
extract from a letter sent him by the Rev. Nicholas Roberts : 
" Some eat it raw, and others fried with oatmeal and butter. It 
is accounted sovereign against all distempers of the liver and 
spleen j and a celebrated physician of that day, Dr. Owen, assured 
me, that he found relief from it in the acutest fits of the stone." 



81 

arising from his seemingly thorough knowledge of 
his subject, and a conviction of the superior ex- 
cellence of the language he was desirous of vin- 
cheating from the indiscriminate censure with 
which it was the fashion to brand it, as harsh, gut- 
tural, and incapable of grammatical rules, whereas 
■ he would engage to prove to the reasonable and 
dispassionate, that the charge of harsh and guttu- 
ral depended more on the tongue of the speaker, or 
the ear of the hearer, than on any constitutional 
vice in the language itself; which, if not judged 
of from the patois of the peasant, in the mouth of 
a gentleman and a scholar, is grand and harmo- 
nious ; copious, without being verbose ; and if it 
had been for these 1500 years, like the other Euro- 
pean languages, improving instead of decaying, 
and being, as it were, expatriated, would have by 
this time lent nerve to the drama, and supplied* a 
fit vehicle for the enchanting notes of a Catalani. 

This subject exhausted, I introduced my relic of 
antiquity for discussion, which I had almost for- 
gotten, and believe' should have left behind me, if 
the accession of a professed antiquary to our so- 
ciety had not brought it to my recollection. 

I told you in a former letter, that the inscrip- 
tion was in a Greek character, and tolerably le- 
gible ; but though we all understood that language, 
and Jones was deeply read in it, we could not 
make out a word that we could trace to any Greek 
root; a circumstance that puzzled us, nay vexed 
us exceedingly. At last our guest, with a sagacity 
he had discovered on several occasions, in the 

Q 



82 

course of the evening, suggested that the words, 
though written in a Greek character, might be 
Latin, thereby rendering the inscription more mys- 
terious ; we then fell to trying it by this test, and 
wrote the words in Roman letters, and made out 
the following monkish lines : 

Prope locum ubi, valle 
Procul profanorum calle, 
Templum primus vir fundavit, 
Et rupis Virgin! dicavit, 
Duorum gladiorum portu, 
Nobilis haeredis hortu 
Legati Angli, Dani Pilla 
Edificetur magna villa ; 
Quo colere Mercurium quest& # 
Quovis vento, quovis sestu, 
Congregabunt mercatores 
Sicut apes circa flores : 
Cum tremebundi nova munda 
Lucem trahent ex profundo \ 
Et sacre positum honore, 
Ftli magni Eleanors 
Malum summum orientis, 
Domo Dei quando sentis, 
Tunc vas Egypti ministrabit, 
Et infantes cruci dabit. 

But though Latin words were made out, and 
those not perfect nonsense, yet turn them in what 
way we would, we could not give them consistency 
or explanation. Another suggestion was then ha- 
zarded by our stranger friend : "It is evidently, " 
exclaimed he, with rapture, " an enigmatical pro- 
phecy (for all prophecies are more or less so); and 
now for an Edipus. 

" First, let us translate it literally : * Near the 
( tlavc where, in a valley far from the path of the 



8 



c» 



'profane, the first man built a temple, and dedi- 
' cated it to the Virgin of the rock, in the haven 
1 of the two swords.' Why, does not that point 
out the founder of the old priory, in the ruins 
of which this relic was found? for perhaps, 
gentlemen, you, being strangers, may not know 
that the monastic building in question was 
founded by Adam de Rape or de la Roche, dedi- 
cated to St. Mary of the Rock ; and by the haven 
of the two swords, must clearly be meant Milford, 
in Welsh called Aberdaugleddau, the harbour, or 
port, formed of two swords, rivers so called, Cled- 
dan being Welsh for a sword. Thus far I think 
we have got on intelligibly; but I fear the sequel 
will not afford us so easy a clue ; but let us pro- 
ceed * * At the instance of the noble heir of an 
' English ambassador, a great town shall be built i?i 
6 the Pill of the Dane.' It appears to me, that this 
is prophetic of the new town of Milford, being the 
creation of the Right Hon. Charles Greville, the 
hares J actus of the late Sir William Hamilton, am- 
bassador to Naples, which may be said to be built 
in the Danes Pill, or estuary, namely Hubba's. So 
far we sail before the wind, and I presume we may 
get a few knots on, without much difficulty, as the 

lines, 

r Quo colere Mercurium questCi, 

' Quovis ven to, quovis sestu, 

' Congregabunt mercatores 

• Sicut apes circa flores,' 

* JV hither merchants will flock to carry on trade 
' f or g a ' in i Me bees about the flowers, with every 
1 wind and tide ; evidently imply the consequence 

g*2 



84 

of such a creation, for ' w here the carrion is, 
' there the crows will be also.' " 

Now came a puzzler; we read and read again, 
we pondered, we paused, we ruminated; our ges- 
tation was long and painful; at last .Jones pro- 
posed another bottle, to facilitate the birth ; a mo- 
tion we readily assented to. The bottle was or- 
dered and brought, which we drank in awful si- 
lence. In order however to induce a discussion, 
I ventured to break it, by observing, that the 
four next lines, " When the Shakers from the 
new world shall draw light from the deep," 
served to mark the time of the event referred 
to in the last couplet, and that the first line 
might shadow out the Quakers, who had come 
from the new world, another hemisphere, to settle 
there; but how they could be said to draw light 
from the deep, I could not understand, " Why now," 
said our guest, " as you have pointed our attention 
to the Quakers, this may be readily solved. They 
carry on the South Sea whale fishery, the produce 
of which is sperma cceti ; out of this substance 
candles are made, and is not this drawing light from 
the deep;" — " But there follows another designation 
of the time," said our guest's son, who, modestly 
attentive to every thing that passed, had never, till 
now, presumed to take a part in the conversation, 
or hazard a guess, " and which I flatter myself, my 
visit to the church before dinner, has enabled me 
to explain : 

f Et sacre positum honore 
' Fili magni Eleanors, 



85 

* Malum summum orientis 

* Domo Dei quando sentis, 

' Tunc vas Egypti ministrabi^ 
' Et infantes cruci dabit.' 

Literally translated : e JVhcn you see the highest 

■ mast of the Orient in the house of God, piously 
\ placed there in honour of the great son of Eleanor ; 

■ then an Egyptian vase shall minister, and give in- 
6 f ants to the cross. 7 Is not the highest point of the 
l'Orient's mast seen in the new church? and has 
it not been placed there, in honour of the great 
son of Eleanor, that is, Nets sen? and may not the 
Egyptian vase, now ministering as a font, be said 
to give infants to the cross by baptism?" There 
was no opposing this ingenious solution of the 
finale of the prophecy. 

The young Edipus having begged to make a fac 
simile of the leaden plate and its inscription, which 
he did with wonderful expedition and correctness, 
one for himself and the other for me, together with 
an impromptu translation * in verse ; I packed it 



* Near the place, in valley, where 
The first of men, of whom we hear, 
A holy pile was said to raise, 
Devoted to the Virgin's praise j 
Far from path of the profane, 
In Two-sword port, in Till of Dane, 
A town of great extent shall rise, 
In after-times, as shall advise 
An English legate's noble heir, 
Whither merchants shall repair, 
Round the flowers as thick as bees, 
With every wave, with every breeze, 

63 



86 

tip with this and my two former letters, to send by 
the next packet that sails, directed for you to the 
care of our common friend at Wateiford; and I 
must request you would have the goodness to 
show it to General Vallancey, the generalissimo 
of antiquaries, who perhaps may explain the two 
or three curious characters inclosed in a true-lover's 
knot, on the back of the plate, which appears to 
be talismanic. 

My companions have left me some time, and a 
disposition to take the same road as they have 
done, predominates over every wish to scribble 
longer. So adieu, till I find myself on the other 
side of the channel 



To Charles O'Brien, Esq. 

At Sea, October 26, I8O7. 
2V1Y DEAR SIR, 

Whilst our friend, your correspondent, 

from violent sea-sickness, is totally unable to carry 

— • ■ 1 ^ ■ ii 1 ■ ~ - 

The state of commerce to maintain, 
And worship Maia's son for gain. 
When those, who are dispos'd to shake, 
Shall the new-found world forsake 5 
And shall, wonderful! to sight, 
Draw from ocean's depth the light j 
When the Orient's topmast you 
In the house of God shall view ; 
A pious act, in honour done 
Of Eleanora's mighty son; 
Then the Egyptian vase of note 
SbaJJ infants to the cross devote. 



8T 

on his journal, I am requested to supply his place, 
which I fear I shall do but awkwardly, yet I trust 
my subject will atone for the vehicle, and it would 
have been unpardonable for any man in my situa- 
tion to overlook the sublime scenery that presented 
itself to m}' view on all sides, without endeavour- 
ing some description of it, however inadequate my 
pen may be to the task. You must know then, 
that we had scarce got without the haven of Mil- 
ford, when the favourable breeze that Ave set off 
with died away, and we were for several hours 
perfectly becalmed, close to the rocky coast to the 
west of Milford. 

At this season of the year there never was a 
finer day; and such was the smoothness of the ele- 
ment we were on, that it admitted of the small 
boat belonging to the vessel being rowed close 
under the land in every direction ; an opportunity I 
was happy to avail myself of, as it enabled me to 
form a pretty correct estimate of the height, the 
form, and the stratification of this grand line of 
coast; and I know not which to admire most, the 
stupendous height of the cliffs, their caves and 
endlessly varied sinuosities, or the singular dispo- 
sition of their strata. Here and there, disjointed 
from the land, arc seen several insular rocks, of 
various shapes and sizes, here called Stacks, co- 
vered so thickly with different sea-fowl, that you 
could hardly put a pin between, and yet perpe- 
tually in an up and down motion, like jacks in a 
harpsichord. Individually their various notes are 
most horridly discordant, yet in concert produce a 

?4 



88 

sort of melody very peculiar, and not unpleas- 
ing. 

I had often heard and read of these rocks, but 
the account seemed to be so vague, and so unequal 
to what they affected to describe, that I should 
suspect them to be secondhand, or such as might 
have been collected frpm a general, and, most likely^ 
cursory view of them from above, which, though 
it may be sufficient to excite astonishment, yet 
must leave the most essential part of their cha- 
racter unknown, and only to be discovered by 
seeing them, as I have fortunately done, in de- 
tail, and from the water. 

What a convulsion must nature have undergone 
to have occasioned this wonderfully fantastical ap- 
pearance, particularly in the strata of these cliffs, 
taking every shape that a line can assume ! 

Unruffled as the face of the ocean was here this 
day, I learn from the sailors, and it is evident from 
the visible effects of its ravage, that the sea beat- 
ing on this coast, when agitated by a storm from 
the west or north-west, is tremendous. 

I here for the first time saw a perfect hermitage, 
in the little chapel of St. Govan's, which we got 
ashore to visit, clambering over large fragments, 
tumbled down, in the lapse of time, from the sum- 
mit of the rocks, forming a sort of rude beach. 
The little oratory is niched in a fissure of the cliffs, 
very high up, only large enough to receive it; 
after passing the rough beach, with steps of cau- 
tion, the ascent to it is by many winding irregular 
steps, which* they say, have the mystic property 



89 

of confounding all attempts to count them. In 
the course of this difficult ascent, two or three 
stones, at stated intervals, are shown you, of pre- 
cisely the same quality as all the other stones 
around them, being limestone, but differing from 
their neighbours, by possessing a bell sound, thus 
accounted for : Tradition says, the chapel was 
once visited by pirates, who sacrilegiously plun- 
dered it of its only moveable treasure, its bell, 
which, in their way down to the vessel, to the 
few stones it happened to touch, or be rested on, 
it communicated the miraculous power of utter- 
ing, when struck, a bell sound ever after. Thev 
likewise show you, in the cavity of a stone skirt- 
ing the ascent about midway, a little water, be- 
lieved by the superstitious to be unfailing, but 
shrewdly suspected, by such as judge of things 
through an unprejudiced medium, to be adven- 
titious. Many cures are supposed to be performed, 
by bathing the limbs here ; and the place is fre- 
quented much in summer by the poorer sort of 
people from the interior, who leaving their votive 
crutches behind, to line the walls of the chapel, 
return restored to their limbs, which perhaps may 
be ascribed, with more justice, to change of air 
and the sea-breeze, than to any virtues inherent in 
this equivocal moisture, found in the stone basin and 
in the floor of the chapel : and I am of opinion 
that this may hold good with respect to all water- 
ing-places, as I firmly believe that half the cures 
attributed to them may be oftener placed to the 
account of a difference in air, diet, exercise, va- 



90 

cancy of mind, and regulations productive of 
greater temperance, than to any salutary proper- 
ties in the waters themselves. 

The sailors told me, that, a few years back, such 
was the veneration the St. Govan's fluid was held 
in, it was a common thing for people of the better 
sort, inhabiting the English parts of this county, 
to bring their infants there to undergo unction 
(for bathing it cannot be called), on a supposition, 
to use their own phrase, that the water made them 
more cute, that is, whetted their intellect, making 
them more acute and subtle; but if they at all 
partook of the appearance of the fluid, I am sure 
it must make them muddy and dull. 

In the rock, to which the east of the ora- 
tory is affixed, is a cell, most probably the ori- 
ginal receptacle of the rigid anchorite, barely ca 
pable of admitting a small body to screw itself in, 
but supposed to have the power of containing the 
largest as well as the least, dilating or contracting, 
to suit its inhabitant; and that if, on entering it, 
you form a wish you do not repent of till you 
have turned round in it, you will be gratified. 
No wonder then that its sides, during this much- 
practised exercise of constancy, should bear a high 
polish. Its situation in the cliff is too far down to 
give you any view of the country at its back, for 
from it you see nothing but the sea in front, the 
craggy and precipitous rocks that embrace it on 
each side, and the canopy of heaven. Here was 
room for meditation even to madness ! Resuming 
the boat, as I withdrew I took another view of 



91 

this curious coast, which at every look discovered 
new and surprising features, and I much lamented 
that I was no draughtsman, as there are points 
here that would furnish the most magnificent 
sketches. 

I have heard much of your Giant's Causeway, 
and of Fingal's Cave, and the rocks at StafFa, in 
Scotland. As independent objects, they may and 
are allowed to be very majestic; but I can hardly 
form an idea of any thing more magnificent and 
romantic than this whole range of rocks for several 
miles. 

Our poor friend had not been on board an hour 
before he was obliged to quit the deck and take to 
his bed, where he continued in one convulsive 
agony that had no pause, and rendered him in- 
capable of any sustenance or comfort ; and, what 
makes me feel the more for him, I have not ex- 
perienced a single qualm, with my spirits higher, 
and my appetite keener than ever. 

I heartily wish we were got to our place of des- 
tination, as I dread the bursting of a blood-vessel, 
his fits being so violent, and succeeding each other 
in such rapid succession; but, owing to the 
wind shifting, we shall be obliged to lie-to all 
night, and cannot possibly, from the appearance 
of things now, get to the end of our voyage be- 
fore morning. I write thus far by daylight, and 
on deck ; but having nothing to induce me longer 
to remain there, I hasten to get below, and I per- 
haps may recur to my pen before morning, to give 



you some account of my lucubrations, for I have 
no tendency to sleep. 

Three o'CIock in the Morning. 
I had no sooner got under hatches than I was 
joined by the Captain, in whom I found a man 
who had seen a great deal of the world, filled a 
variety of situations, and, for a man of his rank 
and quality, not ill-bred or ill-informed. I took 
pains to induce him to be communicative, by 
showing no reserve or distance on my part. I had 
just put my flute together, which perceiving, he 
observed — " I find, Sir, you are musical ; I am a 
little so too," added he, " and I scrape the violin 
sometimes. " Knowing* how charmed wifrfo music 
our friend always is, I thought, if any thing would 
divert his mind, that music would be most likely 
to do it; so, pressing the Captain to produce his 
violin, which he managed above mediocrity, play- 
ing by ear and notes, we had several pretty duets; but 
perceiving, that, instead of mitigating our friend's 
misery, it served rather to increase it, we abruptly 
put an end to our concert, and fell into conversa- 
tion. I soon discovered that my companion had a 
divided nationality, being equally related to Wales 
and Ireland, his father being a Welshman, and his 
mother an Irish woman, so that it was doubtful 
to w r hich of the two countries his bias most in- 
clined. His cabin was lined witbi Irish oak, which 
he said was an antidote to bugs, and probably to 
other vermin. I recollect a line in a poem, called 
the Grotto, by Green, that glances at this pro- 
perty in wood the growth of Ireland : 

2. 



OS 

♦ As spiders Irish wainscot flee." 

I- what we hear of Irish air and Irish earth, as 
well as Irish oak, true to the extent it is told us, 
that no venomous, or even very noxious, animals 
can live there; that you have no moles; and that 
the soil and compost, brought over to other coun- 
tries by way of ballast, and thrown over land 
much infested by moles, has been known for years 
to rid the ground so manured of that destructive 
little miner, till its effect was fairly worn out? 

One would suppose that such a notion could 
never have obtained so generally and so early with- 
out good evidence to justify it, for I recollect 
making an extract the other day from a very an- 
cient writer, one Brunetto Latbii, who was at the 
court of Henry the Third, from his brother-in- 
law, the Earl of Provence, and during his stay 
wrote short notes of England, Scotland, and I re- 
el, in the wretched French of that day. Speak- 
ing of Ireland, he says, 

" Et saehiez que la plus grant partie de toutes les ylles, et 
especiament en Irlande, na nul serpent et porce dient Ji pai^ant 
que la ou Ton portait des pierres ou de la terre d'Irlande nul ser- 
pent ne poroit de morer." 

So that what is now commonly reported, and by 
manv firmly believed, was current in those 
•3, 
The wind began now to indicate an approaching 
s.toiui, when the Captain, as if roused from a 
trance, suddenly exclaimed — u I don't like this : I 



94 

wish we were well over the Channel, for I have 
unfortunately left my child's caul at home." In 
looking over the curious manuscript miscellany, our 
friend referred to as having purchased at an auc- 
tion in Carmarthen, I was puzzled to understand 
something that is put in the mouth of Sir Walter 
Raleigh relative to a child's caul I therefore 
asked the Captain what it was : who told me, his 
apothecary informed him that it was an ihteg— * 
teg — tegument, ay, that was the word, that some 
children, but very rarely, were born with round 
their heads, and that a person carrying one of such 
coverings about him would never be drowned. 
His, by its pedigree annexed, might have formerly 
belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, for he could trace 
it to his great-grandfather, through his father and 
grandfather, who had all been mariners. He said, 
about twenty-five or thirty years ago, they were 
advertised for daily, and great prices, even as high 
as fifty pounds, given for them : but that since an 
ingenious fellow in Wrapping had found means to 
counterfeit them so exactly, and they had been of 
course found defective in the virtue they are re* 
puted to possess, there is not the same demand for 
them. There can be no reliance, therefore, added 
he, but on an old one, whose pedigree is as well 
authenticated as mine. 

What a wonderful nation ours is for factitious 
and other counterfeits, not outdone by any unless 
it be the Chinese, from the Birmingham coiner to 
the imitator of the pellicle called a child's caul! 
I was told that Sir Joseph Banks, in one of his 



95 

desultory morning rambles through a narrow alley 
in the regions of Field Lane, heard a violent 
knocking in a cellar, into which stooping to look, 
and seeing it almost filled up and darkened with 
something of monstrous bulk, he was induced to 
ask the man who was at work, what he was 
about ; who replied, he was repairing an elephant, 
which was totally artificial, and had been exhi- 
bited for years as the real produce of Africa. 

My Captain, pleased with my affability, and 
perceiving me no way disposed to retire, after 
giving some orders about securing the hatches, 
reefing, and other preparations to meet the grow- 
ing storm, charged his pipe anew. I, in my turn, 
producing my cold tongue, pickled oysters, and 
bottled porter, part of our sea stock, pressed him 
to partake; and thus new life was given to our 
conversation, which we indulged in with less re- 
straint, as our friend's groans did not reach my 
ear so often, whereby I judged that he was fallen 
into a doze. 

Having finished our repast, and the Captain 
having fired his tube, he gave me, between whiff 
and whiff, the principal adventures of his life. 
He said he was at the memorable battle of Abou- 
kir, and served on board the Goliath, Captain 
Foley, to whose judgment and intrepidity, under 
Heaven, that signal victory might justly be ascribed; 
he never should forget the gallant commander, with 
that determined bravery and coolness so peculiar 
to him, issuing his orders to lay him so close to 
the enemy, that we might singe their beaids if 



96 

they had any. What he performed so nobly was 
thought by most in the fleet to be impracticable, 
and must have been so to any one that was not a 
whisker-singer like himself; but he reasoned 
deeper, and succeeded. 

It seems, he had likewise been one of Captain 
Fellowes's crew, so miraculously preserved, when, 
in consequence of falling foul of an island of ice, 
their ship was abandoned, and they had taken to 
their long-boat. I had read the pamphlet that was 
published, giving a very interesting account of 
that most providential deliverance; but how was 
it heightened by his more detailed narrative, and 
from the mouth of one of the sufferers ! The Cap- 
tain's wife, a very delicate, and till then a sickly, 
lady, was of the number, of whose conduct, under 
such trying circumstances, he spoke in terms of 
enthusiastic admiration; and, said he, it was vi- 
sibly blessed, for afterwards her health improved, 
and she became the happy mother of children. 
He told me, they had two Frenchmen on board, 
which gave him an instructive opportunity of 
comparing the behaviour of men without religion, 
and that of Christians in similar situations. The 
want of faith and dread of death presented, to be 
sure, in its most horrid shape, made the Frenchmen 
outrageous and frantic, insomuch that one abso- 
lutely jumped overboard, and the other was obliged 
to be lashed to the bottom of the boat ; whereas 
not a murmur escaped the lips of our British 
sailors, whose characteristic light-heartedness was 
then lost in seasonable reflection ; but how could 



97 

they behave otherwise, with such an example of 
patience, fortitude, and resignation, in a woman. 
But from the first I was persuaded we should not 
be lost, for I had my caul about me. I was for 
two years a waterman on the Thames, and by 
shooting London Bridge was once upset and nearly 
drowned. I was taken up for dead, and every 
method recommended by the Humane Society tried 
in vain; but a Malay sailor happening to be pre- 
sent, ran to the fire of the public-house, where I 
was laid out, and catching hold of a boiling tea- 
kettle, poured it gradually on my stomach, con- 
tinuing to do so, to the utter astonishment of all 
the beholders, till symptoms of life appeared." The 
Captain was many times afterwards instrumental in 
the recovery of persons apparently drowned. With 
him I saw r , for the first time, the medal given by 
the Humane Society to such as have been aiding 
in the restoration of a fellow-creature's life ; and I 
think the design, without exception, the most ele- 
gant, classical, and impressive, I ever saw. On 
one side universal Charity is personified by a naked 
boy, holding a torch in his hand nearly extin- 
guished, which, with his hand delicately screening 
it at the same time, lie is endeavourino; to blow in 
with this legend — " Lateat scintittula forsan" 'than 
which three words more appropriate could not be 
picked out in the whole compass of the Latin lan- 
guage, two dubitatives/and one a diminutive of a 
diminutive. The reverse bears a civic garland, 
with tliis legend — kk Pro arc servato" I had 
heard the medal spoken of before, but nqt too 

ji 



38 

highly, and the merit of the design given to a 
}"oung physician of the name of Watkinson, 
who has been dead many years. I think there is 
more real genius often discovered in the happy 
adaptation of a motto, or in hitting off such a 
design as I have alluded to, than in the compo- 
sition of volumes. I was told, that about twenty 
years ago, before some alteration took place in the 
row of houses on the terrace facing the great en- 
trance into Westminster Hall, there was a sun- 
dial introduced into the front wall of the house, 
exactly opposite to this seat of justice, with this 
motto — " Discite jusiitiam mordti" and that the 
monitory timepiece was attributed to Selden. Here 
how much is compressed into a small compass, by 
which lawyers might regulate their consciences as 
well as watches. Nor am I less struck with the 
neatness of what is said to have been proposed 
by the late Dr. Goldsmith as a suitable motto for 
one of the houses in that notorious passage, King's 
Place, when Burke and he happened to take that 
road to the club in St. James's Street: 

" Peccatur et extra." 

The Captain having exhausted his budget and 
his pipe, retired to rest with the storm, which was 
now suddenly hushed into a steady breeze, as fa- 
vourable for our course as it could blow ; a change 
operating on the Captain's nerves most visibly, 
as he had not his wonderful preservative about 
him. I was therefore opportunely left, as I could 
wish, alone to write: but I find the Captain lias 



99 

turned out, and I am invited to join him on deck, 
to hail the roseate morn, and the sight of the So- 
mersetshire coast, which we are approximating 
very fast; a summons that our convulsed friend 
heard with transport, and is hurrying to obey, 
being much refreshed by a turbulent sort of sleep 
he scarce knows he has enjoyed for the last two or 
three hours : so, as I have preparations to make 
for getting on shore, I must bid you adieu for the 
present. 

H.J. 



Minehead, October 27, 1 807. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

With a head that partakes of the fluc- 
tuation of that element I have just quitted, I sit 
down to let you know that I am (thank God!) 
safely landed in the county of Somerset, at Mine- 
head, a miserable-looking place, as far as I have 
yet seen ; but had I touched in a nation even of 
cannibals, I believe I should have felt happy, after 
what I had suffered at sea, having been out a night 
and a day, in all which time I had not ten minutes 
respite from convulsion, the respite of a man on 
the rack, whose torture is suspended only to en- 
able him to suffer more. Andrews, in his Anec- 
dotes, says, " That great man, Seneca, in one of 
liis Epistles, after pathetically exclaiming, ' Quid 
' non potest mihi persuaderi, cui persuasum est lit 
1 navigarem, confesses, that, during a short passage, 

M 2 



100 

shorter than that between Dover and Calais, he 
actually flung himself headlong into the waves, 
merely from an inability to support the harassing 
sensation of sea-sickness;'' a thing, I fear, I should 
have been tempted to have done, bad I not been 
safely cabined. So overjoyed was I to find my 
foot on shore, that I could have kissed it with the 
eagerness of Ulysses in the Odyssey : 

Nor am I yet free from the effects of my sickness, 
for every iive minutes I have a qualm that almost 
oversets me, and makes me lay down my pen. 

My life hitherto, I must gratefully own, has 
passed without much bodily pain, if you except 
two slight visits from the gout in one toe only, a 
disorder in our family that never fails to remind us 
of the sad inheritance even before we are of age ; 
yet even in the paroxysm of the fit, such a fit as 
I have experienced, it was possible to derive some 
alloy from suffering the mind to be occupied by 
the recollection of the most delightful moments of 
life. But sea-sickness shuts a door against a pos- 
sibility of comfort. In vain did I endeavour to 
fancy my Eliza, like a cherub, " new lighted on 
some heaven-kissing hill," and with her angelic 
presence dispersing the fiends that seemed em- 
ployed to agonize me. The mind, thoroughly sub- 
dued by the body, had no will of its own, and 
reflected no other image than that of helpless un- 
pitied misery, thrown upon it by its tyrant com- 
panion of flesh. In vain did the kind oijiciousness 



101 

of the sailors set fine beef before me, and pour 

the foaming- porter into the goblet, which at any 

other time would have made my mouth water; 

but 

" Furiarum maxima juxta" y 
'/ Accubat et dentes prohibet contingere mensas." 

In vain dtd the Captain, with a voice that would 
not have disgraced a theatre, chant out that noble 
song, " Blow high, blow low," and Jones touch 
his flute not inharmoniouslv ; but neither si no-ins: 
men nor singing women could now have power to 
charm me. 

I got into the first alehouse that occurred near 
the pier at which I was landed, and, bad as the 
room is I am now sitting in, so as it does not 
^fluctuate, I fancy myself in a palace. Hence, 
when I have cleaned myself from the pollution of 
a sea voyage, I shall, with Jones, happy dog! 
who was not sick at all, but eating like a cormo- 
rant, proceed in style, in a post-chaise I have sent 
for, to the inn of the town, which lies at some 
distance from the port, to the house of the gentle- 
man to whom our loquacious Captain, on the other 
side of the water, gave me a letter of recom- 
mendation. The house is about live miles off; 
and the gentleman is no other than the lion. Mr. 
Fortescue, brother of Lord I'ortescuc, who, bred 
to the sea, has for some years quitted it. and hen 
in a most delightful retirement enjoys the " otium 
cum dignitate." 

I must now for the toilet, as, whilst I was 

writing, Jones has finished his operations, and 

11 :» 



102 

left the only glass disengaged for me, which X 
must hasten to employ, as the chaise sent for will 
soon be at the door ; so, in hopes that my head 
and stomach will be more at ease when I write 
next, I take my leave for the present ; but my 
heart being ever the same, believe me to be un- 
alterably, 

Yours, &c« 



Holnicote, October 28, 180?i 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

After an evening passed in all the elegant 
and unceremonious luxury of high-bred society, 
consisting of a pleasing mixture of music, literary 
conversation, and innocent trifling of minds, not 
ashamed to unbend when there is no sacrifice 
made to folly or to vice ; I rose with the lark, as 
buoyant as if I was mounted on his wings. 

You must know, then, that, my credentials 
from our navy acquaintance were most cordially 
received by his quondam shipmate. " What ! and is 
Barely still living?" he exclaimed; " I thought 
the suffusion of his gnomon, that got him the 
name of Bay^dij, would have extended to his whole 
body ere now; but I am glad to hear that he is in 
existence, and seemingly happy, by his manner 
of writing: no man deserves happiness more; he 
was no man's enemy but his own, and was as 
good a creature as ever cracked a biscuit, and had 
the heart of a lion ; and yet men who had not 
half his courage or his worth, gave him the go-by." 



103 

We then told him the manner in which our ac- 
quaintance had commenced, and our desultory ex- 
cursions in his company, and of his planning. 
11 Ay, that is so like him." We likewise re- 
marked the singular circumstance of his not hav- 
ing a single tooth in his head, and of his gums 
being so indurated that their loss is not missed : 
" I am not so much surprised at that," said our 
host, " for my friend Bardjj took no small pains 
to get rid of them." 

The ceremony (if that can be called ceremony 
that involved nothing formal or repelling) of in- 
troduction over, we had just time to prepare for 
dinner, the greater part of the work of our toilet 
having been performed before we stepped into the 
chaise. 

Dinner was announced and served up in a very 
elegant manner ; the company were, besides Mr. 
Mrs. and Miss Fortescue, a gentleman and lady 
and their daughter, relations of the family ; the 
gentleman all mildness, good humour, and bene- 
volence; and his lady with a mind in perfect 
unison with his, and an angelic face, the fit skow- 
glass of the precious gem the casket contained. 

Their daughter was a young lady, who, without 
possessing a very extraordinary share of beauty, 
had such a countenance and manner as rather ex- 
cited respect than love at first sight ; but on a 
longer acquaintance insensibly took full pos- 
session of the heart; which is ever the case 
when the beauty is more beholden to the mind 
than the face. It seems she was on the point of 

ii 4 



104 

being married to a young gentleman then abroad, 
and detained in some part of the northern states. 
This unwelcome news but lately arrived me- 
thought gave an air of pensiveness to her. adding 
much to her charms. She played and sung with 
great taste, and seemed to give wonderful effect 
to any air that involved sentiments in the least 
resembling those she might be presumed to in- 
dulge under the peculiar circumstances of her si- 
tuation. If it is pain to be absent from those we 
love though we know that they are at large and 
happy, what then must be her feelings who in 
the near approach of the hymeneal hour learns, 
that the object of her affections, hastening home 
on the wings of rapture, has his flight checked 
by order of an unnatural tyrant, lost to all the 
finer emotions of the soul, and on whose wanton 
and merciless fiat his liberty, if not his life, may 
depend ! 

In the group there was a young man of fashion, 
who was hurrying to town with the fall of the 
leaf, who had mixed much with the beau monde, 
without imbibing its follies, for he had learning* 
without ostentation or pedantry, and good manners 
free from monkey tricks, in which high breeding, 
by their being so generally practised, one would 
think consists. And last, though not least, in the 
estimation of such as could relish benevolence 
without parade, and piety without cant or austerity, 
we had likewise a clergyman of our party, the 
rector of the parish, a scholar, a gentleman, and 
•a Christian-— a rare union, but the benefit of which, 
5 



105 

owing to his meekness, his modesty, and retired 
habits, is not as widely diffused as it could be 
wished. Of my host and his lady I have not said 
much; but if dignity without pride, the greatest 
affability and good temper, a desire to oblige, and 
a considerable knowledge of the world, be ingre- 
dients to form a pleasing character, Mr. Fortescue 
has the highest claim on admiration, and his lady 
was formed to make such a man happy. 

Their house is perfectly the cottage without, 
having a thatched roof; woodbines, jasmines, and 
roses, clothe the walls, producing the most pleas- 
ing effect; but within we meet with every fa- 
shionable accommodation that high life can require, 
or that taste can suggest ; nor is there a good col- 
lection of books wanting. The drawing-room is 
elegantly furnished by the most charming speci- 
mens of Mrs. Fortescue's pencil. In her life there 
is no waste of time, which happily unites the do- 
mestic with the more fashionable accomplishments. 
Such is her arrangement, that every department 
in her family feels it, and she superintends herself 
the instruction of the young ladies, her daughters, 
who have all the retiring delicacy that becomes 
their years, and might be expected from an edu- 
cation under the eye of such a mother. She is 
likewise the physician of the 'poor of the neigh- 
bourhood ; nor, whilst health is restored to the 
disordered body, is the physician of the soul un- 
employed, for the worthy rector of Selworthy is 
unwearied in the discharge of his pastoral duties, 



106 

ever solicitous to discover if his wretched pa* 
rishioilers should want spiritual comfort. 

Of such a household I have now the inexpre*^ 
sibie happiness of making one ; and every thing id 
done that politeness and genuine hospitality can 
dictate to induce me to forget that I am a stranger. 
Jones, who I told you sings well, and touches the 
flute with no ordinary skill, has gained great ap- 
plause by singing some of the Welsh airs to Welsh 
words, which, through his organs, have the soft- 
ness of Italian ; and has every evening the honour 
of accompanying the young lady I just now men- 
tioned on the piano. He has been equally suc- 
cessful in two or three English songs of his own 
composition, adapted to favourite airs, which, in 
the course of my correspondence, when I feel a 
dearth of matter, I may treat you with. 

To-morrow I sally out to explore this curious 
and very beautiful coast, and in search of more 
genealogical knowledge, if I can be so fortunate 
as to pick it up any where. At the same time 
Jones is in hopes of adding to his botanical know- 
ledge, and is preparing his apparatus accordingly. 
He is very deeply conversant with botany, and 
used to correspond with Withering', and such is 
the progress he has made in what he calls the 
cryptogamial tribe, that he means to publish a little 
treatise on fungi and mosses, that I am told has 
wonderful merit, is highly spoken of by amateur 
botanists, and is likely to throw a new light on 
this mysterious department of the science. 

My thread is fairly spun out, and I must lie by 



107 

till to-morrow, when I hope I shall furnish myself 
with an ample supply of fresh unwrought mate- 
rials, that will serve me for some time to work with. 

I am, ever yours, &c. 



Holnicote, October 2Q, 1807. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

Early after breakfast, horses having 
been provided for us, we rode out, attended by the 
worthy clergyman I have already introduced to 
you, and visited the church of which he is rector, 
called Selworthy, first stopping at the glebe-house, 
about a hundred yards from the church, where we 
took refreshments. It is an ancient building, but 
fitted up in a neat modern st}^le, with no small 
degree of taste. 

The church stands considerably above the level 
of the vale, and commanding a fine view of it on 
the south, with a high hill sheltering it from the 
north. It consists of a nave, chancel, and side- 
aisles, separated by two rows of elegant, light, 
cluster pillars; Gothic arches, not very pointed; 
the roof covered and ceiled with wood, divided 
into square compartments, each angle of the square 
ornamented with a sculptured quatrefoil, or shield, 
bearing some grotesque figures. There is a neat 
gallery for the singers; and the family of Ilolnicote 
have their pew elegantly formed out of a lumber- 
room over the church porch, with a projected 
opening into the church like a balcony. There js 
a date round one of the pillars, but no older than 



108 

the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the. 
monumental way there is nothing old enough to 
interest the antiquary; a few mural marbles, of 
rather a late date, commemorate the Stainsbys and 
the Blackfords, former possessors of Holnicote. 
On the chancel floor there is a brass tablet, curi- 
ously and quaintly inscribed to one Fleet, a former 
rector; and another near it, on the last incumbent, 
sublimely unintelligible; both which, as I know 
you are a collector of odd epitaphs, and as fond of 
them as ever old JVeever was, Jones in shorthand 
has treasured up for you, as well as several other 
memoranda, that he thinks will prove an acces- 
sion to your porte-feuille. The church is dignified 
with an embattled tower, faced with a clock-dial, 
and furnished with a good ring of bells. In this 
churchyard, as in every other that I have visited 
in this neighbourhood, there is a handsome cross. 
I likewise observed a raised tomb, with an escut- 
cheon of arms on one end of it, to one Siderjin — 
Quere, if Siderfin, the law reporter, or any of 
the same family? There is a tradition, that the 
present barn of the parsonage had, during the re- 
building or thorough reparation of the cliurch, 
been used as a substitute. There is, on the north 
side, the stone frame of a Gothic window still 
remaining, and the whole fabric appears so very 
ancient, that I should rather be inclined to think 
that the barn had been the original church, as 
it lies due east and west. 

I cannot avoid remarking the growth of the 
ivy here, infinitely more luxuriant than I ever saw 



109 

it any where else, and so covered with bees sack- 
ing its bloom, that it appeared as if a swarm had 
just alighted on it. 

We ascend the hill called, from its direction, 
North Hill, being the boundary of the vale on that 
side, through a finely sheltered cxvm or dingle, 
well calculated for wood, but entirely destitute of 
any growth above the rank of fern. 

When o«ot to the summit of this rano-e we s;ain 
a charming view of the Severn sea, the Welsh 
mountains, and the coast of Monmouthshire and 
Glamorganshire, on one side; and on the other 
the beautiful vale in which Holnicotc stands, end- 
ing at Porlock, and bounded on the south side by 
the highest ground in the west of England, called 
Dunkery. The hill we now rode on extends from 
Minehead to Horshead Point, a name I am bold to 
give it, and to contend that it is the name it bore 
originally, though now corrupted ; for it is a rock 
very similar in form and colour to the skeleton of 
a horse's head. The ride is exquisitely pleasant, 
over very fine turf: here and there are circular 
elevations, which they call beacons ; though, from 
their being so frequent and so near to each other, 
it makes strongly against the supposition that 
they were ever designed for that purpose. 

Near the extremity of the point follow a wind* 
ing path through a cwm still deeper and narrower 
than that we ascended through, and pass Lynch, 
where formerly stood a chapel of ease to Sel- 
woithy, now exhibiting a ruined shell of very 
line masonry, with a side window of no mean 



no 

tracery; the east 'window being lost by its union 
with another more modern building. Near every 
farm-house hereabouts are venerable and pictu- 
resque walnut-trees, and most of the gate-posts 
are formed of living trees (a singularity of the most 
pleasing effect) : myrtles of the most luxuriant 
growth clothe the walls of every house you pass. 

Hence over a flat opening to Porlock Bay, con- 
sisting of most fertile land in small inclosures 
with richly wooded hedge-rows, to the village of 
Porlock, whose church I had occasion to visit :~ it 
has a plain square tower, surmounted by a trun- 
cated spire covered with small shingles in pat- 
terns. Within the church, under a rich canopy 
raised beneath one of the arches that divide the nave 
from the aisle, is a high tomb, bearing two recum- 
bent figures, a male and female, in white marble :— 
the knight is in complete armour, with a curious cap 
over his helmet, and a richly sculptured wreath, 
adorned with grapes and vine-leaves, indicative, I 
presume, of some office he might have held under 
the crown, or of the tenure of his lands ; for if it 
was meant to characterize a professed bacchanal, 
it would be such an outrage to all decency as 
could hardly be charged on any period of the 
Christian era, to give a vicious pre-eminence 
in so solemn a place the lasting recard of u Parian 
stone." The lady's head-dress is equally singular, 
something in form of a mitre. But I was 
sorry to see the whole monument, figures and all, 
scratched and mutilated in every direction ; a dis- 
grace that peculiarly attaches to our nation, every 



Ill 

other in Europe but our own paying a proper 
xespect to sepulchral, as well as all other relics of 
antiquity. I am told that the Trajan column at 
Rome, though standing in an open market-place, 
uninclosed by rails, or any protection, has not a 
single scratch on it. The above monument has 
no inscription or armorial record on any part of 
it to lead us to an acquaintance with the illustrious 
dead, save a crest, which seemed to be a lion's 
head erased, on a wreath affixed to the helmet on 
which the knight's head rests. 

Collinson, so little dependance is there to be 
placed on the writers of county histories, who too 
often see and hear through the organs of others, 
says, the male effigy is that of a knight templar ; 
whereas the crusader, which he does not notice, 
lies under a canopy in the south wall, almost con- 
cealed by one of the pews. I could obtain no ac- 
count of the figures within the communion rails, 
or of a very old tomb with sides rudely ornamented, 
and an escutcheon of arms much blunted and dis- 
guised by yellow ochre, which, as well as white- 
wash, the antiquary or the pedigree-hunter, like 
myself, have frequent occasion to execrate. 

On the south wall of the chancel was a pomp- 
ous mural monument, bedizened with painting, 
gilding, and sculpture, to the memory of Natha- 
niel Arundel, a former rector, who died A. D. 
1705; yet, unfortunately for me, productive of 
nothing I was in search of but the name of 
Arundel, being very barren in genealogy, and too 
modern to leave me a hope of its being likely to 
4 



112 

involve any account of the connexion I was de- 
sirous of substantiating. I am inclined to think, 
from a suggestion of Jones, who always makes 
happy hits, that the real name was L'Hirondelle, 
and that the family coat, bearing six birds very 
like swallows, was an allusion to it. 

Here I observed what never occurred to me 
before, that the generality of the modern monu- 
ments were tablets of wood, neatly ornamented, 
painted, and gilded. The spout that conducts 
the water from the leaden gutter separating the 
aisle from the nave on the south side of the 
church, is the stone figure of the head of a fish of 
enormous size, with his mouth open; a pun, as I 
was informed, on the plumber's name, which w r as 
Whale. In the churchyard is the largest yew- 
tree I ever recollect to have seen. 

The situation of Porlock is beautiful and roman- 
tic, being nearly surrounded, particularly on the 
south side, by lofty hills, intersected by deep and 
well-wooded glens, through each of which tumbles 
some mountain torrent. 

Below the town there is a small pier for vessels 
fetching coals and lime from Wales. There was 
here an extensive chase, and a palace, or rather 
hunting-seat, of one of the Saxon kings. 

In 9 1 8 the Danes invaded this coast, and were 
routed. In 1059 Harold burnt the town. A 
small camp of an oval form, in a wood a mile and 
a half south-west of the church, is supposed to 
have been thrown up on this occasion, the en- 
trance being on the land side: warlike instru- 



113 

mertts have been dug up here. The inhabitants 
preserve the memory of those occurrences to thi.s 
clay, and show the marks of the fire on some of 
the stones. Algar, son of Leofrick Earl of Mer- 
cia, owned much land here, whose name is pre- 
served in Allersford, which should be called Air 
garsford. There is a mccr of some extent above 
the beach at Porlock, which perhaps might have 
given name to the place, the old British name 
being probably Porthliwch, the port of the lake. 
This meer is a great decoy for wild fowl. 

Beyond the pier, at the entrance of a richly 
wooded glen, is a summer residence of Lord King, 
called Ashley Cottage, niched in the side of a 
hill overhanging the sea, whose oaks feather 
down to the water's edge. The walks here wind 
with great taste, and are enriched with the most 
luxuriant growth of various sorts of evergreens 
and deciduous shrubs ; and beyond the extent of 
the pleasure-grounds that embrace the house, 3 
most romantic road is carried for a mile or more 
through the woods to the sequestered little vale 
of Culbone, in which stands the parish-church 
and rectory of that name. 

A more perfect seclusion cannot be well ima- 
gined ; the surrounding hills bcipg so high and so 
woody as to exclude the rays of th,e sun for the 
greater part of the day, scarcely felt but when 
they are vertical, and never seen during the three 
winter months. I have often remarked, that 
many names of places in England are half Saxon, 
and half British; and Jones, who is a most ingc- 

1 



114 

nious etymologist, will have Culbone to be such a 
compound, the name being Cil bourn, the narrow 
brook, as the vale is watered by a brook of this 
character. 

In our return across a considerable mountain- 
stream, called the Hornor; or perhaps more pro- 
perly by its true original British name, the Hwr- 
nxvr, or the snorer, from its peculiar sonorousness. 
The whole of this lovely vale is richly wooded, 
and the nearer boundaries are charmingly diver- 
sified. Nothing seems wanting to make it vie 
with the finest parts of the king'dom but a spirit 
of planting judiciously, directed to give a -more 
varied outline to the summits of the remoter high 
hills that environ it, and thereby Tweak the mo- 
notonous dumpy form they now bear. 

Holnicote belonged to William de Horne, 
temp. Edw. I. who held it of the King in ca- 
pite, by a very odd tenure; by the service of 
hanging on a forked piece of wood tire red deer 
that died of the murrain in Exmoor Forest. The 
office of forester is now held of the Crown by 
Sir Thomas Ackland, Bart, to whom Holnicote, 
with a large property round it, and very consi- 
derable church patronage, belongs; though the 
young Baronet lives at his noble seat near Exeter, 
his mother, the present Mrs. Fortescue, chiefly 
residing at Holnicote, where, at a little distance 
from the old mansion, which was destroyed by 
fire, she has erected its successor in the cottage 
style, to furnish an opportunity for the display of 
her fine taste. 



115 

After the luxury of the table was over, this 
evening, like the former, was devoted to music 
and the most interesting conversation; and & 
sprig of laurel was voted to Jones for the fol- 
lowing little song. — 

What art thou, Love, whose power, unseen, 

All living creatures own ; 
Whose shafts, like those of Death, are keen, 

And throw distinction down ? 
When first I went with my fond swain 

A-maying to the grove, 
I felt a something seize niy brain ; 

Oh ! say, could this be love ? 

The little birds on every spray 

Display'd their painted wings, 
Whilst each fond couple seem'd to say 

A thousand rapt'rous things ; 
All nature answer'd to the fcey ; 

He press*d, in vain I strove; 
I follow'd till I lost my way : 

Oh ! say, could this be love? 

So delightfully is every moment of our time 
employed here, that there is no escaping from the 
fascination of a society so bewitching till the 
temperate hour of withdrawing to repose dissolves 
the spell. I therefore do not grudgingly borrow 
from rf st to pay my arrear of correspondence. 

Yours, &c« 



ia 



lib 



Holnicote, October SO, 180/; 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

Not having rigidly iimited ourselves te 
time, so we get to town by Christmas, and having 
received the most pressing and polite invitation 
to extend our stay here ; our worthy host will 
not suffer a morning to pass without giving us 
some new treat by introducing us to new scenery. 
The bill of fare for this day has been the pictu- 
resque and romantic valley of Horner, the heights 
of Dunkery, the monarch of their mountains, the 
churches of Stoke Pero and Luckham. Th« val- 
ley through which the Horner winds is bounded 
by very high hills, clothed with most magnificent 
woods ; it is in some parts narrow ; in others ex- 
panding into large reaches of flat ground, covered 
with majestic oak, ash, and forest trees of every de- 
scription, interspersed with the euonymus, holly, 
white-thorn, and mountain-ash. The ride for the 
most partis near the margin of the river, which, 
in all its course (arid we followed it for above a 
mile through this rich scenery), is one of the 
finest mountain streams lever saw, broken per- 
petually by masses of rock obstructing its channel, 
and forming it into a series of cascades. Every 
tre.e was a lesson for the pencil. 

After crossing the Horner we begin to ascend 
the first hill through the wood; and though high, 
when we gained its summit it bore no proportion 
to the height of Dunkery mountain, towering 



117 

majestically above it. From our first landing- 
place we saw a small rectorial church in a most 
lonely situation, called Stoke Pero, in the patron- 
age of Sir Thomas Ackland; from the apparent 
scantiness of the population of that district, I 
conceive the congregation to be very small, the 
whole parish consisting only of two or three 
farms, and an uninhabited tract of heath, border- 
ing on Exmoor Forest. 

Exmoor is an immense tract of waste, inhabited 
only by a small breed of horses and wild deer ; 
Sir Thomas Ackland is ranger of it under the Crown. 
In this neighbourhood are kept the only stag- 
hounds in the kingdom except those of His Ma- 
jesty. 

Hence we keep ascending gradually, through 
heath, in many places tending to bog; and here 
I saw for the first time anv of the black game. 
When we had gained the lower part of Dunkery 
ridge, for it keeps rising towards the east, we 
found ourselves in the midst of three tumuli of 
stones, half of each of which seems to have been 
carried away to make hedges on some farms to 
the south-east of the ridge ; but so happily are 
they plundered, that their probable sepulchral 
contents may not have been disturbed. Thev at 
present mark the boundary of Sir Thomas Ack^ 
laud's and Sir Philip Hale's manors. Hence 
along the ridge eastward, which soon expands 
into a considerable flat, covered with numerous 
stacks of turf, pared off the surface of the soil 

i S 



m 

for fuel, being thickly interwoven with roots of 
heath. 

We now reached the highest point of the moun- 
tain called Dunkery Beacon, on which stand four 
or five most stupendous cairns, in all appearance 
of vast antiquity, and never materially disturbed. 
They are by the inhabitants here considered to 
have been beacons ; — but why so many in one 
spot, and of an equal height ? That one of them, 
long subsequent to their original formation, at 
different periods might have been put to that use, 
is highly probable ; but to think that they were 
at first designed for that purpose, were as absurd 
as it is in general found to be erroneous. As far as 
one of those primitive telegraph beacons goes, I 
am willing to allow our ancestors a perfect know- 
ledge of turning it to account; but to suppose 
they were capable of ringing endless changes on 
them by an increase or diminution of their num- 
ber, would, I think, be to give them credit for a 
greater skill in the science of signals than they 
justly can be entitled to. 

From this eminence the prospect by sea and 
land is of great extent, and finely contrasted ; on 
one side highly cultivated vallies and the ocean ; 
on the other, an immeasurable tract of heath, part 
of Exmoor Forest, and on whose distant ridges 
with the horizon, we observe several large 
tumuli, and on which Mr. Collinson, the only, or,, 
at any rate, the latest historian of this county, 
with as much pathos as knowledge of his subject 
(appearing to be very deficient in both), makes^ 



119 

the following remark : " Here on this desolated 
spot stand a number of simple sepulchres (pretty 
alliteration) of departed souls (rather bodies), 
whether of warriors, priests, or kings, it matters 
not (true barrow-hunting antiquaries would not, 
I believe, be of the same opinion), whose memo- 
ries have perished with their mouldering urns" 
(but their urns have not perished, but are found 
entire ; so much Mr. Collinson knows of the mat- 
ter). He then concludes with a sentiment not 
unworthy a Young or a Hervey : " A morsel of 
earth now damps in silence the eclat of noisy 
warriors, and the green turf serves as a sufficient 
shroud for kings !" — Very sublime, very moving, 
this ! 

The day now beginning to lower, and mizzling 
clouds involving us, we did not extend our ride 
to another hill still more eastward, whose summit 
was marked by a group of cairns, but turned 
short down the side of Dunkery to Sweet-tree 
valley, terminating in the Vale of Horner. This 
cwm is prettily sprinkled with wood, and watered 
by a romantic mountain-stream. By the Homel- 
and this river a considerable knoll is encircled and 
almost insulated, on which if a castellated man- 
sion was built, and a park inclosed, it would 
make as noble a residence as can be imagined, 
when the grandeur of the mountain at its back, 
the romantic course of the river surrounding it, 
and the magnificence of the woods, with the 
whole concomitant scenery, are taken into the 
account, 

I 4 



12*0 

The mist having' left us, in our descent towards 
Holnicote, just above Luccomb, we were much 
struck with its church and village, filling a most 
curious circular hollow ; and the smoke, it being 
near the general hour of dinner, had a very pic- 
turesque effect, wreathing from every house, the 
air being remarkably still. We stopped to see the 
church, which is a handsome Gothic structure, 
consisting of a nave, chancel, and south aisle, se- 
parated by a row of columns, their capitals orna- 
mented with flowers and fruits. It has a high 
embattled tower, clock, and a ring of bells. It has 
k cross in the churchyard, as all the other churches 
here have. There are some remains of fine painted 
glass in the windows, and over the font was sus- 
pended a linen veil, or covering, in the shape of 
an extinguisher, a peculiarity I never before ob- 
served in any other church. The monumental re- 
cords were but few, which I minutely examined* 
but, alas ! the names of Arundel and Rogers were 
no where to be found, or any other name that was 
Hkely to add a link to the chain I wanted to eke 
out. The church is a rectory, and in the gift of 
Sir Thomas Ackland, whose church-patronage is 
very extensive. 

I could not help observing a remarkable pecu- 
liarity in most of the houses of the lower class in 
this country : the chimney is always an excres- 
cence in the front side of the house, and generally 
round, and not far from the door; from a suppo- 
sition, I presume, that by these means the draught 
of air from the door is avoided, and the chimney- 



121 

corner is rendered more snug. The same custom 
I noted in that district of Pembrokeshire called 
Roos, perhaps originating with the same people, 
the Flemings, who were likewise settled on the 
Somersetshire and Devonshire coasts prior to their 
coming into Wales. 

If a traveller has an ear, it cannot escape his 
observation that the driver of the plough in these 
parts is incessantly chaunting out the terms by 
which he incites the beasts drawing it, in a mono- 
tonous kind of tone; and this, when many ploughs 
are out, fills the whole compass with what I think 
a most melancholy sound. They think that rt 
cheers the cattle, and that they work the better 
in consequence. 

After the luxury of the table at Holnicotc, our 
evening furnished the most delightful mental en- 
tertainment; and as far as music, vocal and instru- 
mental, could advance it, no way inferior to those 
which had preceded it since we had been num- 
bered among the guests. Jones, as usual, oili- 
ciated as priest of Apollo, and bore off a fiesh 
sprig of laurel to enrich his garland. In my next 
perhaps 1 may treat you with the little impromptu 
which has raised him very hio-h in the estimation 
of those who were witness to the almost 'unprovl- 
satoreness of his composition, and the taste with 
which he manages his vocal powers, particularly 
when his own sentiments are the subject of the air. 

He likewise gave us another specimen of Welsh 
poetry, set to music by himself] which from his 
mouth is so soft and melodious, that my ear prefers 



122 

it to Italian, it being quite as mellifluous, with 
more grandeur ; and, if I may be allowed the ex- 
pression, more originality of sound, as it is not, 
like the principal European living languages, the 
echo of those we call dead. Its words are all its 
own, perfect and appropriate, ever the same, and 
Heeding no change. Jones, though in himself 
possessed of powers fully equal to the praise or 
vindication of his native language when he enters 
the lists as its champion, yet is always furnished 
with auxiliar arguments for his purpose, having 
often referred me to a panegyric from the pen of 
an author who was no Welshman, and therefore- 
not to be suspected of prejudice or partiality — ■ 
old Fuller, who, on this, as on all other subjects, 
though quaintly, expresses himself with great 
force ; and as I have been fortunate enough to 
meet with the book in the library of this house, it 
being one that is not likely to have fallen within 
the course of your reading, I send you the quo- 
tation, and hope you will be as much pleased 
with it as 1 was. 

" First, their language is native ; it was one of 
those that departed from Babel, and herein it re- 
lates to God, as the more immediate author there- 
of; whereas most languages in Europe owe their 
beginning to human depravings of some original 
language : thus the Italian, Spanish, and French, 
are daughters or nieces to the Latin, a regenerated 
race from the corruption thereof. Secondly, un- 
mixed: for though it hath some few foreign 
words, and useth them sometimes, yet she rather 



1*3 

accepteth them out of state, than borroweth them 
out of need, as having, besides those, other words 
of her own to express the same things. Yea, the 
Romans were so far from making the Britons to 
do, that they could not make them to apeak as 
they would have them ; their very language never 
had a perfect conquest in this island. Thirdly, 
unaltered : other tongues are daily disguised with 
foreign words, so that in a century of years they 
grow strangers to themselves, as now an English- 
man needs an interpreter to understand Chaucer's 
English. But the British continues so constant to 
itself, that the poems and prophecies of old Ta- 
liessin, who lived above one thousand years since, 
are at this day intelligible in that tongue. Lastly, 
durable : which had its beginning* at the confu- 
sion of tongues, and is likely not to have its end- 
ing till the dissolution of the world. Some, in- 
deed, inveigh against it as being hard to be pro- 
nounced, having a conflux of consonants*, and 

* As to the supposed redundancy and confluence of conso- 
nants, thereby impeaching the harmony of the language, Jones 
has furnished me with a note out of a paper by Mr. W. Owen, 
the author of the Welsh Dictionary, wherein he says, in answer 
to a question he puts, " Is the Welsh an harmonious language ? 
This is a question which strangers have habitually decided in the 
negative j adding likewise, that it is overloaded with consonants. 
With a view to ascertain the truth of this objection, I endea- 
voured to calculate the proportion of vowels and consonants in 
various languages j the result with regard to the Welsh was, that, 
upon an average, for one hundred consonants it had a like num- 
ber of vowels, fa. Greek the proportion is ninety-five vowels to 
a hundred consonants. In regard to the harmony of the Welsh 



at 

some of them double sounded ; yea, whereas the 
mouth is the place wherein the office of speech is 
generally kept, the British words must be uttered 
through the throat ; but this rather argueth the 
antiquity thereof, herein running parallel with the 
Hebrew (the common tongue of the old world), 
to which it hath much affinity, in joining of words 
with affixes, and many other correspondencies. 
Some also cavil, that it grates and tortures the ears 
of hearers with the harshness thereof; .whereas, 
indeed, it is only unpleasant to such as are igno- 
rant of it; and thus every tongue seems stam- 
mering which is not understood ; yea, Greek itself 
is barbarism to barbarians. Besides, what is nick- 
named harshness therein, maketh it indeed more 
full, stately, and masculine. But such is the epi- 
curism of modern times to addulce all words to 
the ear, that, (as in the French) the} 7 melt out in 
the pronouncing many essential letters, taking out- 
all the bones to make them bend the better in 
speaking; and such hypocrites in their words 
speak them not truly in their native strength, as 
the plain-dealing British do, which pronounce 
every letter therein, more manly if less melodious. 
Lastly, some condemn it, unjustly, as a worthless 
tongue, because leading to no matter of moment; 
and who will care to carry about that key which 



tongue, a stranger to its orthography cannot judge from books j 
but if I were to select such phrases as are written in character* 
familiar to him, it would be difficult to draw expressions equally 
smooth from other languages-." 



125 

can unlock no treasure? But this is false, that 
tongue affording monuments of antiquity, some 
being left, though many be lost, and more had 
been extant but for want of diligence in seeking* 
and carefulness in preserving them *." 

Should you happen not to have the same relish 
for my old friend Fuller's conceits as I have, I 
fear you will not thank me for this long quotation, 
with which I shall leave you, as the solemn tongue 
of time has uttered One, and opened another day 
to my existence, though Sleep, Death's counter- 
feit, challenges as his right the earlier hours of it, 
while nature seconds the claim. 

Yours, Sec. 



HoJnicote, October 3 i, 1S10. 
AIY PEAR CHARLES, 

I steal from sleep an hour to recount 
the business of this day, which our worthy en- 
tertainer, as the weather was favourable, would 
not surfer us to lose, especially as he was proud of 
•an opportunity of showing the beauties of a 
country to persons who, I trust, were discovered 
not to be totally insensible to them. Our course 
was to Minehead and Dunster. The town of 
Alinehead consists of three parts triangularly 
placed : the upper and principal portion, including 
the church, occupies the slope of a high hill to 

* Fuller's Church HisLory, page Q5. 



m 

the east; the middle half a mile to the south-east 
fVom the beach ; and the lower, or quay town, by 
the sea-side, under shelter of rising ground. It 
was formerly a place of great trade, but now 
much on the decline, as may be found by a com* 
parative survey of 1705 and the few last years. 
The town was incorporated temp. Queen Eliza- 
beth, and called in the charter Man heve, perhaps 
Mohun heve, from Sir William de Mvhun, who 
had great possessions here ; or, as Jones suggested 
in the exuberance of his ludicrous wit, rather 
3 fan heave, from its formerly dealing so much in 
malt, the produce of which, strong ale, may be 
said often to heave a man off his legs ; and the 
more to confirm the etymology, the little village 
called now Bossington, not a great way off, was, 
from the influence of the same commodity, ex- 
tending thus far, no other than Boqzing town. In 
such playful etymological sallies does my inge- 
nious companion now and then indulge, to excite 
the innocent laugh, and prevent monotony. 

The town thus scattered and divide^ has $ 
shabby appearance, a considerable part being i& 
ruins since the fire that destroyed it some yeari 
ago. The church, placed on an eminence, is a 
handsome building, with a lofty tower : the as- 
cent to it is by a pitched pavement ; the cemetery 
is large, and full of graves ; so that if the popu- 
lation is great, the mortality keeps pace with it 
On one side of the steeple, in a niche just under 
the clock^dial, is the figure of the saint it was 
dedicated to, or the king or great man wha 



\<27 

founded it, holding a crucifix before him, which 
they have made to look most hideous, by painting 
the face and eyes to produce this Gorgon effect. 
The church consists of a nave and side-aisle, se- 
parated by a row of pillars, which have left their 
perpendicular long ago, and are bolstered up 
within and without. The chancel is divided from 
the body of the church by a most elegant rood- 
loft of curious workmanship, in the north corner 
of which stands a fine statue of Queen Anne, in 
white marble, of admirable sculpture, and in high 
preservation, given by Sir Jacob Banks, member 
for the town in 1719, who had represented it for 
sixteen years. On the same skle, under what was 
©nee a superb canopy of stone, but with its rich 
tracery flattened and disfigured by whitewash, 
the antiquary's bane, is shown the effigy of Brac- 
ton, the great father of our law; but from his 
dress, and his having the tonsure and a chalice in 
his hand, I should rather set him down for a priest 
than a judge. 

About the beginning of last century a great 
herring fishery was carried on here ; but that mi- 
gratory fish had for many years almost deserted 
the coast, but has revisited it this year, yet not 
in great abundance. We have been treated with 
them every day, and yet we are not tired of 
them. They had likewise a great trade to Ireland. 
Mr. Collinson talks of a limpet from which is ex- 
tracted a curious dye ; he should have said a peri- 
winkle; but this is a common one on the Welsh 
coast, and I am told by Jones that it is only the 
white kind has the vein which supplies the fluid 



1-28- 

giving a colour that rivals the Tyrian purple, so 
much extolled hy the ancients, and probably pro- 
duced from the shell here referred to. 

Hence to Dunster, a corruption of Dun, 
signifying a ridge of hills stretching length- 
ways on the coast ; and Torr, a fortified tower- 
It was given to Sir William de Mohun, who fame 
over with the Conqueror, and seating himself at 
Dunster, formed a town, strengthened it with a 
castle, and founded a priory of Benedictines to the 
north-west of his residence, where Jie lies buried. 
A Lady Mohun, in the fiftieth year of Edward 
III. sold the estate to a Lady Elizabeth Lutterrell, 
in which family it has continued ever since. The 
castle is a magnificent building at the south ex- 
tremity of the principal street of the town, and 
commands a most charming view. The famous 
Prynne was here imprisoned. A small but rapid 
stream from Dunkery passing to the south of the 
town, turns in its short course six grist-mills, one 
oil, and two fulling mills. The church is a noble 
Gothie structure, of the age of Henry VII. : the 
tower is in the centre of the building; that part 
to the east of it was the old priory church, but is 
now much dilapidated and neglected, though con- 
taining many magnificent monumental records of 
tire Mohun and Lutterell families : the west part 
only is used for divine service. The tower -is 
ninety feet high, and is furnished with a clock 
and chimes. 

Clouds beginning to condense and threaten 
; v ome sudden fallj induced us to hurry homeward* 



129 

and abridge our excursion. Return by Bratton or 
Bracton, a hamlet which gave name to the family, 
whence sprung Henry de Bracton, the great Eng^ 
lish lawyer, temp. Hen. III. and who, I conceive, 
for the reasons already assigned, is erroneously said 
to be represented by the effigy shown for him in 
Minehead church. The old manor-house is large, 
and appears to be of great antiquity. It now be- 
longs to Lord Kino;. I could have wished to have 
had more time to explore the supposed birth-placa 
of the venerable Bracton, and certainly should 
have taken it, had not a sharp sleet, becoming 
more fleecy every moment, and threatening to end 
in a violent fall of snow, accompanied by a high 
wind, literally driven us home, where we had been- 
-scarcely housed before the landscape was involved, 
and the whole face of the country covered with a 
white sheet, and gave double zest to our in-door 
amusements, for which repeated gratification 
seemed to increase our relish. I must now per- 
form the promise I made you in my last, by giving 
Jones's song, which, inadvertently, he had writ- 
ten on a scrap of paper, having on the other side 
a few beautiful lines, which, but for this accident, 
might, perhaps, have perished unknown, though 
I flatter myself you will deem them richly worthy 
of notice, and thank me for tacking them on as a 
rider. 



130 



SONG. 

O Darron, to say if I love you or no, 

Why press me, and kindle my cheek? 
There are those mute tell-tales, you very well know, 

Of whom you may find what you seek. 

Alas ! but I fear they have told what 's to tell, 
And all further concealment were vain > 

In a language my Damon interprets too well. 
Which speech cannot better explain. 

Yes I yes ! I 'm betray'd — conscious blushes will rise, 

And the mask that I wore I resign j 
For now I with transport behold in your eyes 

What they have collected from mine ! 



ON A FLY SEEN IN THE DEPTH OF WINTER TO SETTLE 
ON A LADY'S CHEEK. 

When heat from Winter's icy chains 

Had set at large a captive fly, 
Kis wing no sooner he regains, 

Than he alights near Caelia's eye. 

That cheek has blushes which excel 

Whatever Flora can disclose : 
Child of the Summer ! thou mightst well 

Mistake it for the damask-rose. 

Yet stay not there, rash insect, shun 

That torrid zone ere 'tis too late ; 
For in that eye there flames a sun, 

Which to approach is instant fate I 

But if on this delicious coast 

It is thy doom to die by fire, 
Th' Arabian phoenix cannot boast 

'Midst sweets more fragrant to expire. 



131 



Holnicote, November 1, ISO?, 
AiV DEAR CHARLES, 

In consequence of our having expressed 
a wish to explore the contents of the lofty stone 
cairns on the height of Dunkery, and the hum- 
bler sodded tumuli on the opposite ridge above 
Selworthy; our polite host, desirous of affording 
us every gratification in his power, gave orders 
for three or four pioneers to be ready in attend- 
ance the following morning; and though the 
morning opened with " sharp sleet of arrowy 
shower," we were not deterred from carrying our 
plans into execution, such full possession had the 
antiquarian mania taken of us. 

Our first essay was on the Selworthy ridge of 
hills, where, after penetrating into two or three of 
those venerable mounds, we failed to discover any 
thing besides a little charcoal, generally an infal- 
lible criterion to induce us to think them sepul- 
chral; though, probably, we might not have fallen 
on the exact spot where the urns, or the inter- 
ment, of whatever kind it might be, was depo- 
sited, being all ignorant of the science of barrow- 
opening, which, I am told, is, in Wiltshire, almost 
reduced to a system. 

This work having proved unsuccessful, and 
being informed by a countryman, a by-stander, 
whom curiosity had brought to the spot, that a 
•little way off, at the foot of the mountain, stretch- 
ing down to the sea, before we come to Miuehead, 



152 

there were, close on the shore, ruins of an, 
ancient building called Burgundy Chapel; like 
professed antiquaries, we caught eagerly at this 
information, and begged our peasant Cicerone 
to conduct us to the place, which he engaged to 
do. Our road for a few miles lay along the sum- 
mit of the ridge, but afterwards took a direction 
to the left, through holiows w'hose declivities 
would hardly admit of our proceeding. However, 
we followed our guide as long as he seemed to en- 
tertain any hopes of discovering the object of our 
pursuit; and in doing this we suddenly got into 
a narrow gulley or covered way, winding down 
towards one of the little accessible coves on the 
coast, where probably the Scandinavian pirates 
might have landed, and excavated this road to get 
tip into the country unperceived. Near a bend 
which it takes in its course, on a spot more level 
than is the general character of the surrounding 
ground, and curiously sheltered, near water, we 
observed evident traces of early habitations; and 
the place is distinguished by the appellation of The 
Yards. 

After floundering for a full hour, through va- 
rious difficulties, our conductor fairly gave in, 
saying, that, though he was certain the place was 
near, he had lost his land-marks most unaccount- 
ably ; and so Burgundy Chapel remains yet to be 
found. I fear the antiquary is often liable to be 
thus duped ! 

In our new characters w r e made but a sorry 
*%ure, an <l we h ac * f rom tm V pur first -essay, no 



133 

great encouragement to prosecute our researches ; 
yet, notwithstanding*, we turned our eyes with 
fresh delight towards the gigantic monuments that 
give an awful dignity to the opposite mountain, 
which, though the advanced hour of that day put 
it out of our power to visit, we kept it as a bonne 
douche for the next, our liberal entertainer pro- 
mising to add to the number of the pioneers in 
proportion to the increasing magnitude of the 
projected labour. 

After some driving showers of sleet aud snow, 
the day brightened, and left tine horizon perfectly 
clear; so that on our return we had a most exten- 
sive and delightful view of the mountains of Wales, 
and its line of rocky coast across the channel, on 
the one hand, and the richly diversified scenery 
of the vale of Porlock just under us on the other, 
bounded by Dunkery, with its head in the clouds- 

We took an earlier dinner than usual at the 
worthy rector's of Sel worthy, where we passed a 
few truly Attic hours in his parsonage-house, that 
most happily unites elegance and comfort, giving, 
by a discussion of a variety of interesting sub- 
jects, a zest to our wine. 

From this " feast of reason and the flow of 
soul/' we adjourned to llolnicote, and the later 
hours of the evening flew away on wings of rap- 
ture, leaving the mind under the influence of a 
sort of enchantment that triumpns over sleep it- 
self, aud keeps us awake with the recollection of 
pleasures, the result of social sensibilities, wit, 
beauty, and music; an enchantment that, were il 

K 3 



134 

possible, would almost make me forget my Eliza ; 
tut her image, ever present, supplies a spell that 
makes every other charm powerless ; — a thousand 
stars may sparkle and blaze; but hers, with unri- 
valled lustre, will ever maintain the ascendancy. — 
But, Charles, with thy heart cased, as it might 
seem, in tenfold adamant, though the growth of 
a climate professedly under the predominance of 
the loveliest planet, Venus, I know thou wilt 
laugh at me for this weakness, in the avowal of a 
passion thou hast either never felt, or affectest to 
stifle. If such apathy be wisdom, be philosophy, 
I glory in being ranked among Nature's fools. In 
this alone I suspect thee a hypocrite : can stoic 
indifference dwell in such a mind as thine, than 
which a warmer, a manlier, never informed a 
human breast, with thoughts that glow, that burn, 
and with feelings as quick of sense as that which 
lives along the spider's line ! 

Adieu ; and let me close my letter with a little 
epigrammatic address to Sleep, to which I am at 
this moment a humble but unsuccessful suitor : 
the original, in Latin, you perhaps may have 
seen ; but you cannot have seen the translation, 
which I shallbeg leave to subjoin, an extempora- 
neous effusion of a great literary character of the 
present day, when very young, and given to Jones 
by a member of Clare Hall, Cambridge, as a thing 
never made public, and perhaps now forgotten by 
the author himself, of whom it may be said, as of 
Goldsmith, by Paoli, " That he was like the sea, 
which threw up pearls without its knowing it." 



Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago, 
Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori -, 

Alma quies optata veni, nam sic sine vita, 
Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori. 

Though Death's strong likeness in thy form we trace, 
Come, Sleep, and fold me in thy soft embrace; '' 
Come, gentle Sleep, that sweetest blessing give — 
To die, thus living 5— and thus dead, to live ! 



Holnicote, November 2, ISO?, 
3\IT DEAR CHARLES, 

Instead of being damped by the ill suc- 
cess of yesterday's excursion, I felt my ardour for 
barrow-opening rather increased, and I was up 
with the day, impatient to ascend the mountain 
that was -the proposed scene of our operations; 
and as it was planned over-night, I, willing to 
signalize myself for zeal on this occasion, set qff 
before my companions, escorted by a weather- 
beaten huntsman of the late Sir Thomas Ackland, 
a man who had been for near half a century in 
the habit of scaling Dunkery, and encountering 
the tempest on its front of snow ; yet who, so 
fierce was the storm of sleet that overtook us 
half way up the mountain, shrunk from its vio- 
lence : as for me, cased as I was in double and 
treble great c^ats, I felt the blast th rough every 
joint, and almost repented me of my bpld under- 
taking; yet, ashamed to give it up, I was resolved 

K 4 



136 

to stem it, and proceed, as it had all the appear- 
ance of a shower only, which proved to be the 
case ; for we had no sooner reached the summit 
than it ceased, and left us in a clear, but pierce^ 
ingly cold atmosphere. 

My work was now before me, but the labourers 
were not arrived, and I had half an hour to wait 
and survey those stupendous mounds of stone 
raised, as my fancy suggested, over chiefs who 
had merited highly of their country to be thus 
distinguished ; and to accelerate the circulation of 
iny blood, which was almost stagnated by the in- 
tense cold, I flew from one to the other with an 
enthusiasm that would have done honour to the 
most professed antiquary. My pioneers had now 
assembled, and I lost no time in setting them to 
work : I began my operations on two which had 
certainly been much disturbed, if not opened ; 
but, as I was willing to suppose, not by such as 
had any thing more in view than the stones they 
were composed of; and, therefore, I had still hopes 
that the sepulchral contents might yet remain to 
be discovered. 

The cairns I began with were such as were not 
likely to keep us long in suspense ; for, though of 
a considerable round, their height had been much 
reduced, particularly towards the centre, to which 
our attack was chiefly directed, as from Douglas's 
Nienia, yesterday evening, I had been taking a 
lesson, and found that, in general, the interment 
was to be looked for as near as possible to the 
middle of the barrow, though there were excep- 



137 

tions, but rare, to this general rule; for I now re- 
collect hearing our antiquarian acquaintance 
whom we met at Haverfordwest, and afterwards 
at Milford, consulted respecting the prophetic in- 
scription found at Pill priory, say, that he had 
known tumuli without any central interment, but 
having a row of urns round the margin, a singular 
variety, and perhaps unique. 

By ^he time I had finished the examination of 
the second cairn, my companions in the vale, with 
calmness and sunshine in their train, had joined 
me. The history of my fruitless researches was 
not very encouraging, for I even had not the ani- 
mating symptoms that yesterday's labour pro^ 
duced, of charcoal and other evidence of burning. 
But still this was not considered a fair trial, and 
it was determined to encounter the monarch of 
the mountain, a cairn of immense diameter, and 
at least twelve feet in height from the apex, en- 
tire, and apparently untouched. The stones were 
not very small, but yet not too large to be ma- 
nageable. The labourers, fully persuaded that it 
contained treasure, worked with uncommon spirit, 
and, though the task was Herculean, accomplished 
it in much less time than I thought it possible, 
clearing an opening of no small diameter to the 
bottom. I hung over the work the whole time 
with anxious expectation, and was certain that 
nothing could have escaped my intent observation, 
had any relic or other sepulchral symptom turned 
up. However, another of nearly equal size, and 
seemingly as perfect and untouched, under went a 



138 

similar operation, and produced a similar disap-^ 
pointment. 

On Jones, Dunkery had the effect of Parnassus ;■ 
for, not willing to think the venerable piles we 
had been exploring any other than the sepulchres 
of the mighty dead, he had made our violation of 
their manes the subject of a poem, and had in- 
voked the muses, not unpropitiously ; when he has 
written it fairly I will send you a copy of it, and 
shall be happy to have- your opinion ; you have 
been an admirer of his smaller things, but this is 
something out of his ordinary style, and, being 
such, is entitled to some indulgence. Pray show 
it the General, who, I am told, is as great a. judge 
of poetry, as of the Ogham learning. 

Apropos ! — I have heard that a stone has lately 
been dug up out of a tumulus on the Curragh of 
Kildare, with an inscription in that character, 
giving an account of a temple that once stood on 
the Curragh, similar in size and form to that of 
Stonehenge, and that here Garble Riada, in whose 
reign, about the second century, it was erected, 
was buried. 

I am so much at a loss to account for those 
stone pyramids, which have excited my attention 
since I have been in this country, that I am very 
desirous of knowing the General's sentiments on 
the subject; for, notwithstanding we have not 
been so fortunate as to fall upon the interment, 
perhaps a difficult thing in heaps of that magni- 
tude, yet I cannot give up my belief of their 
being some of the primitive mausoleums, and, 



139 

could I extend my stay longer here, should per- 
suade myself to hazard another attempt: you 
must confess that I am fairly bit, and have the 
barrow mania strongly on me. 

To-morrow will be our last day here, though we 
are pressed to stay till the weather alters, so that 
you must not expect to hear from me till I am 
got to Wiltshire, a route I am resolved on, as I 
shall, by taking it, have an opportunity of seeing 
three places I reproach myself for having not al- 
ready seen, viz. Stourhead, the seat of Sir Richard 
Hoare; Stonehenge ; arkl Sarum, both Old and 
New. Fare you well for a few days, and let me 
live in your remembrance, as you do ever in that 
of 

Yours, &c. 



Bridgewater, Novembers, ISO/. 
ilV DEAR CHARLES, 

Seeing no prospect of a change in the 
weather for the better, I at last mustered a resolu- 
tion (and you well know what an irresolute creature 
I am) to tear myself from the elegant hospitality 
of Holnicote ; though if I waited to see sunshine 
without, or clouds within, I believe I should 
have wintered in this (maugre Dunkerv's un- 
ceasing storms) lovely Vale; and yesterday morn- 
ing took my leave of my worthy cnrertaiiK rs, and 
a spot that will ever be dear to me, where, If I 
could have forgot my Eliza, I should have p:;ssed 
one of the plcasantest portions of mj 






140 

Our last clay, for the tempest would not admit 
of our peeping out, was devoted to in-door amuse- 
ments ; I had my journal to review, and my pedi- 
gree to work up ; while Jones was equally busy 
in copying out fairly his almost extemporaneous 
effusion of the muse, and which, unless pressed 
to it, he neglects to do, so that many a choice 
tnorceau is by that means lost. Besides, his bo- 
tanical acquisitions, which during his stay in So- 
mersetshire are much increased, called for ar- 
rangement, especially as he talks of publishing a 
small tract on fungi this winter. 

In case we should be disposed to pass that, way, 
we were charged with introductory letters to 
Stourhead from Mr. Fortescue, whose 1 lady is 
a sister of Sir Richard Iioare, and got as far 
as this place last night, through sleet and a 
thick fog, that would not permit us to see 
twenty yards from the chaise. We changed 
horses at Stowey, and staid only while our 
"baggage was shifting, and the horses putting 
to. The fog was thicker than ever, and fleecy 
snow falling, all I could discover particularly in 
this town within my ken, was, that water ran 
through the street, as I am told it does at Salis- 
bury. It was dark night before we reached 
Bridge water, and by the turnings we made, and 
the rattling we heard over pavements, we con- 
cluded that this must be a large town. 

We felt inexpressible happiness to have arrived 
at our inn, and nothing was wanting to complete 
it but a good fire, and a comfortable quiet. room. 



141 

The former we were not disappointed in, but the 
latter it was impossible to get, as the house, on 
account of some public meeting, and the weather 
detaining many of- the company in town, was 
so full, that there was no private sitting-room, 
but only a large common room disengaged, of 
which already possession had been taken, on 
condition that the first occupants were not to 
object to any accession which might happen to 
be made to the party in the course of the even- 
ing. Knowing this, we needed no apology for 
our seeming intrusion. On entering, we found 
three gentlemen, and before supper were joined 
by four or five more. The same conditions ex- 
tending to us all, we appeared to acquiesce in the 
necessity of being social ; and having secured our 
beds, and ordered supper, we began to converse 
'and enjoy our fireside. 

Two of the gentlemen who had pre-occupied 
the room were evidently young, and of a condi- 
tion above their appearance, though one of them 
had given himself a disguise to produce a look of 
age and vulgarity, by wearing a wig certainly 
never made for him, a rusty gray, cocking up at 
the nape, and in quality not much better than 
those that are destined to perform the part of scare- 
crows. The other wore a black scratch, of a cut 
very antiquated, but covering the head better, and 
brought very low on the forehead, chiefly for the 
purpose of contributing to secure the application 
of a false nose,' so nicely adapted as to leave a 
person at a little distauce in doubt whether it was 
an adventitious or the real gnomon rather en- 



142 

larged and enriched by an immoderate use of the 
grape. Their discourse with each other was a 
colloquy of irresistible humour ; nor was their wit 
confined to themselves, for each of the company 
had a share of it in their turns. They affected to 
pass for foreigners, talking the English language 
well, but with a happy imitation of a foreign ac- 
cent, a sort of falsetto. They likewise addressed 
each other by foreign names, one being called 
Signor Parvidogiio, and the other Monsieur 
Shqmntz. 

Of the rest of our company I have now to give 
you the description : one was a person who every 
autumn made an excursion into different parts of 
the kingdom, to visit trees remarkable for size, 
traditional age, or picturesque growth, and took 
drawings of them. His visit this season had been 
limited to Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Somerset- 
shire, and he was now returning by way of Shaftes- 
bury, having heard of a venerable oak in that 
neighbourhood, at a place called Silton, under 
which it is said that Judge Wyndham, in Charles 
II.'s time, who had his mansion there, used to 
smoke his pipe. By this sort of desultory life he 
had, at the age of seventy-five, an appearance of 
forty, was cheerful and well informed. For fifty 
-years he had lived in London, in the same set of 
chambers at one of the inns of court, which his 
father, an eminent solicitor, had occupied for 
forty years before him ; and for. those fifty years 
never had been seen in town from the first of 
August to the fifth of November ; and never out 



143 

of it from that day to the next August in all that 
time. He drank neither spirits nor wine, but 
always some sort of malt liquor, if it could be 
got ; otherwise water, given a chalybeate quality 
to by being impregnated with a red-hot poker, and 
suffered to cool : nor had he ever been bled, taken 
physic, or kept his bed from sickness. As a sort 
of liqueur he had always by him in town some 
strong metheglin, brewed after a receipt he found 
in Fuller's Worthies ; which, on feeling any ten- 
dency to a cold, or other indisposition, he indulged 
in two or three glasses of. To preserve and im- 
pTove health, the greatest blessing of life, he was 
not ashamed to say he had fallen on numerous pe- 
culiarities, which many had endeavoured to laugh 
him out of, but which he still invariably persisted 
•in. He said he rose early, and before he left his 
chamber ate a crust of bread ; then followed the 
precepts of the school of Salerno: 

Lumina mane, manus surgens gelida lavet unda, 
Hac iliac modicum pergat, modicum sua membra 
Extendat, crines pectat, dentes fricet, ista 
Confortant cerebrum., confortant caetera membra. 

To the use of the comb, particularly in the 
morning, he had reason to attribute the strength 
of his sight and hearing, which few men at his 
time of life, he might venture to say, enjoyed iu 
greater perfection; though he did not supersti- 
tiously adhere to the number of times Marsilius 
Ficinus recommends the drawing the comb through 
the hair; not less than forty. In addition to the 
4 



144 

observance of such rules, when m town he went 
every morning to a livery-stable ride, first having 
put camomile-flowers in his shoes, and walked up 
and down the ride covered with fresh stable- 
litter for half an hour. He never met with 
an accident, but was near losing his life the 
first night of Garrick's acting after his re-ap- 
pearance on the stage on his return from the con- 
tinent : he went to the play in company with a 
friend of his, an officer in the army, who had 
been wounded in India, storming a breach, but 
could he have foreseen what he that night under- 
went from the pressure of the crowd, he would 
have rather hazarded the event of the hottest cam- 
paign. The house was a faint representation of 
the Black Hole of Calcutta. 

The least social of our party, dressed in black, 
with a straight head of hair, and demure counte- 
nance, I took for an itinerant methodist preacher, 
and found I was right in my conjecture ; for in 
the course of his conversation it came out, that he 
had been brought up at Trevecca, a seminary in 
Brecknockshire, established by a noted, or, rather, 
a notorious preacher, of that country, one Howel 
Harries. From his hard accent I should have set 
him down for a Welshman ; but he was shrewd, 
and not deficient in history and classical learn- 
ing, a knowledge he had occasion to display in 
consequence of several ludicrous attacks made 
upon him by the masqueraders. He much con- 
gratulated the nation on a Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, who,- while he managed the finances of 



145 

the empire with economy, had so much of the 
new light as to show that he was not inattentive 
to laying up those treasures " where thieves do 
not break through and steal;" he likewise was ex- 
travagant in his eulogium on the Society for the 
Reformation of Manners and Suppression of Vice; 
but on one of the masquerading gentlemen asking 
him if he had ever been a missionary at Sierra 
Leone, I know not why, but he was silenced at 
once, and never uttered another syllable. 

There was also a rattling country squire, re- 
turning from Amesbury, where he had been with 
his greyhounds ; and, as he said, to use his own 
phrase, had been making an example of Mans- 
field and Lord Rivers. " I am sure, Gentlemen," 
said he, " were you to see my two dogs Snap and 
Goby, you would pronounce them the very first 
coursers in England; only examine their points :" 
then ringing the bell, he ordered his servant to 
introduce the two greyhounds, to the no small 
annoyance of our party, as he coursed all his 
courses anew, swearing, that if he lived to the 
next meeting he would again make an example of 
the old Judge, a term I find peculiar to the mem- 
bers of the Greyhound Club. 

We had an itinerant miniature-painter, who had 
been traversing the west of England, carrying on 
a most delightful commerce, to prepare and fit 
ladies for the bosoms of their lovers, for the mo- 
derate fee of one guinea. He produced specimens 
of his art, not despicable, though, I presume, ra- 
ther more highly finished than his guinea touches, 

L 



146 

which he must nave thrown off with wonderful 
rapidity, as he informed me, that since he had left 
town, in the course of three months, lie had 
painted ninety-eight portraits. " Why, then," 
cried the squire, " Master Brush, you may as well 
make up your number a hundred, and I and Snap 
will sit for our pictures," 

The other, who entered last, must have been, 
from the bundle of fishing-rods he carried with 
him, a disciple of old Isaac Walton :■ he was at- 
tended by a pretty, delicate-looking youth, who 
passed for his nephew, but whom I had, from the 
first, set down for a girl in disguise ; and this was 
the opinion of the whole company after this pair 
had retired, and that they did at an early hour. 
It seems this angler had this autumn been in De- 
vonshire, pursuing his favourite diversion, and had 
taken care to provide himself with a stock of 
gentle bait. What might have been his skill in 
angling, and judgment in fish, I am not able to 
decide ; but his taste in the choice of his compa- 
nion argued him to be no mean adept in the 
science of flesh, 

After supper our masked friends started a va- 
riety of subjects, which they hunted down with 
great sagacity. Among many others a publi- 
cation they produced, entitled, Bath Charac- 
ters, which had then made a great noise, be- 
came the subject of discussion ; but as we 
had never read or seen the performance till 
now, we could not join in it; they therefore, 
with great politeness, suffered the pamphlet 



147 

to circulate round the table, and gave us some 
idea of the object of the publication. The 
Italian gentleman, Signor Parvidoglio, seemed to 
think very slightingly of it, as it affected to aim 
Its satire, or rather low malice, at real characters, 
for no other reason than that one was fat, another 
skinnv, a third fond of music; and that ano- 
ther had slept longer than usual, owing to the ex- 
treme ignorance of the physician, who had, in his 
prescription, directed octoginta instead of " octo- 
decim guttas" of laudanum ; as if that ignorance 
was confined to Bath, when it is well known that 
such ignoramuses swarm in the metropolis, in the 
character of physicians as well as apothecaries ; 
for I knew an apothecary in London, who, on 
reading a prescription where a medicine was or- 
dered to be used pro re nata, refused to make it 
up, conceiving it was meant to procure abortion. 
Besides, where is the humour of a dialogue be- 
tween a drunken parson and a fiddling eunuch ? 
There can be no wit surely in representing the 
minister of God under circumstances disgraceful 
to religion, and letting us know that a foolish Ita- 
lian is vain of the effect of his instrument on a 
lady who has an exquisite taste for his perform- 
ance. As to the equivoque that runs through die 
dialogue, it is too threadbare and low to excite 
a smile, and has not a feature to prove it of the 
household of wit. If a man's real name is Apple, 
he is called Sir Rcdstreak Pippin; or if he has 
been so unfortunate as to write any little jeu 
desprit of fourteen lines, whether legitimate or il* 

l 2 






148 



legitimate, he is to be held out to ridicule under 
the name of Billy Sonnet. If this is wit, this 
satire, there is no company of eight who sit 
down to dine with each other, but may furnish 
materials for a publication of this sort. 

In Italy one of the most popular pamphlets 
ever known in that country was written merely 
by way of trying its effect on the public, by 
a lounging Englishman, on the subject of a 
fete at Naples, on the sea-shore, in which a 
great naval officer, and a well-known diplomatic 
character, made"' a conspicuous figure ; the name 
of Sir Sinister Teneriffe being given to one, 
and Sir Pottery Lava to the other. It was 
translated into Italian, but, by order of the King 
of Naples, the English as well as Italian edition 
was suppressed, and, I believe, very few be- 
sides myself can boast of being in possession 
of this rarity. 

Jones, who had been long silent, now accosted 
the Signor: " As you, Sir, have applied the epi- 
thets legitimate and illegitimate, to the sonnet, I 
presume you must be either favourable to, or have 
a contempt for that distinction ; for my part, as to 
the question of legitimacy and illegitimacy, I am 
not ashamed to declare for the bastard sonnet." 
Signor Parvidoglio, as I must still call him, though 
I shrewdly suspect he can have no other relation- 
ship to Italy than that of having visited it, per- 
haps when making the fashionable tour of the 
Continent, said he was happy to echo his senti- 
ments. 



149 

" Tis true, much ingenuity lias been exercised on 
the definition of the true sonnet, lately, by men of 
eminence in literature, so that we are induced to 
think the discussion of importance ; but all they 
have advanced only serves to convince me that 
they want taste and have no ear ; I say with you, 
the bastard sonnet for me ! The sonnet, a small 
poem of fourteen lines, is of Italian origin, and 
was constructed as to rhythm to accommodate itself 
to the genius of that language, and to music. 
Milton, in English, was the first servile imitator 
of the sonnet after the Italian model, without 
any reference to the origin of its structure * 
and if you except two or three, they are mean 
prosaic compositions, exceedingly inharmonious 
to a true English ear, from the returns of the 
rhythm being too frequent, or too remote from 
each other. 

" Meaning to have written a small treatise on the 
subject, I have taken some pains in selecting 
sonnets of both kinds, and happen to have now 
by me one very beautiful specimen of the bas- 
tard kind, by Sir Philip Sidney, who is said to 
have had an exquisite taste for music, and yet 
preferred that species;" which producing from his 
pocket-book, he told Jones he was welcome to 
a copy of it; who by his rapid skill in brachy- 
graphy soon made it his own, to enable me to 
inclose it to you. 



h 3 



150 



SONNET. 

Who doth desire that chaste his wife should bee, 

Fi;st be he true, for truth doth truth deserve; 
Then be he such, as she his worth may see, 

And alwaies one credit with her preserve 5 
£Jot toying kind, nor causelessly unkind ; 

Not stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right j 
Not spying faults, nor in plaine errors blind ; 

Never hard hand, nor ever reins too light 3 
As far from want as farr from vaine expense, 

Th'one doth enforce, the other doth entice *, 
Allow good companie, but drive from thence 

All filthie mouths, that glorie in theire vice :— 
This done thou hast no more, but leave the rest 
To nature, fortune, time, and woman's breast. 



Changing the subject, he then asked Jones if 
he was fond of masquerades, or had been much in 
the habit of frequenting chem : on Jones saying- 
he had never been but at one in his life, he re- 
commended a more intimate acquaintance with 
them, vindicating them from the unjust sentence 
pronounced against them, of being the most dan^- 
gerous and immoral entertainments tolerated in 
this kingdom ; whereas he contended, a com- 
mon dance, that is, a ball, innocent as it may 
be considered, and even encouraged by the most 
prudent, virtuous parents, has a much more ob'- 
yious tendency to heat the imagination and to cor- 
rupt the mind ; for 

ff When music softens,, and when dancing fires," 



151 

every barrier which female delicacy at other times 
sets up against insolence and familiarity, is broken 
down in the hurrying maze of all those voluptuous 
evolutions incident to that, I cannot call it, ac- 
complishment; and the passions thus inflamed, 
the quickest road is open to the heart. Who 
knows how fingers and toes may be taught to 
speak? And in the dance where is the Mentor 
whose sagacity such tactics cannot elude? Eyes 
are always eloquent ; but here, where without 
control they are suffered to hold sweet converse 
with each other, who is bold enough to estimate 
the extent of the danger such a dialogue may 
produce? It is the only species of amusement 
that admits of an indiscriminate license of look, 
speech, and gesture; which, stopping short of 
offence, censure has no power to lay hold of to 
correct. At a masquerade, women of character 
are always under the protection of a parent, hus- 
band, brother, or friend ; then what mischief can 
ensue ? familiarity then admits of no improper 
latitude, and insult cannot be offered with impu- 
nity." Then, once more suddenly shifting the 
subject, and addressing himself to the chronicler 
of trees: — " Sir, I much admire your pursuit, pro- 
ductive of health and elegant amusement ; and 
should be happy to hear that you were disposed 
to treat the public with the fruits of your studies. 
The painter, the naturalist, and the antiquary, 
have an equal interest in them ; but what would 
you think of a man, such is the depravity of 
the age we live in ! who travelled for as manv 

I L 



152 

months in summer as you have done, to copy 
every scrap of nonsense and indecency from every 
inn window and wall, with an intent to enlarge 
the collections in Ana by a publication with the 
title of Wall-tf/2tf, Window-#;2#, and Cloacin-tfwtf ; 
I am told this was clone in a sister kingdom, and 
the prospectus of the work met with great encou- 
ragement, and was likely to prove as productive 
as ' More Miseries' In Ireland though, I am 
told, that in Swift's time it was the rage to scribble 
on glass, and it was quite unfashionable not to 
carry a diamond for that purpose; and I am told 
that the windows of the common inns on their 
great roads now bear memorials of the greatest 
wits of that age." 

Finding that our route lay through Wiltshire, 
and that we had letters of introduction to Stour- 
head, they spoke with enthusiasm of that charm- 
ing place, as intimately acquainted with it, 
and its worthy possessor. Of all the show-places 
they knew of, and there were none that they 
seemed strangers to, they were best pleased with 
Stourhead ; there was more softness and repose in 
its character. The spot seems to harmonize with 
its master's mind, which, like the scene around 
him, is tranquil, yet full of life; retired, but 
never gloomy. 

It had struck twelve, and we all recollected 
that it was time to retire, and even I could not 
withhold myself from the arms of sleep, but re- 
lied on my being able to quit my pillow early, to 
write to you. And now having accomplished my 



155 

task, the chaise is ordered, and we are instantly 
going to proceed, meaning to be at Stourton to- 
night. Our companions, we were told, had all of 
them left the inn before we were up, notwith- 
standing the snow fell thick. It is at present a 
little better, and there is a sickly gleam of sun- 
shine. I hear the chaise, and must wind up ; Jones 
has been ready this half hour, so adieu ! 



Piper's Inn, November 6, I8O7. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

Our first stage from Bridgewater was 
Piper's Inn ; and though at setting out we had a 
short interval of sunshine and a blue sky, yet long 
before we completed our stage it began to snow, 
and just as we drove up to the inn it thickened to 
such a shower as I never remember to have wit- 
nessed before. At the inn we were not a little 
delighted to find our masquerading friends, who, 
as they were going to diverge to the left from this 
road, had ordered an early dinner, and hoped we 
would have no objection to make such additions as 
we pleased to their bill of fare, and join them. 
With readiness we accepted the invitation, and 
anticipating the pleasure of their conversation, 
we forgot the storm, which continued with un- 
abated fory for above an hour, and left us once 



154 

more in sunshine. Our dinner was ready at the 
very unfashionable hour of one. 

I must tell you, that a little before we sat 
down, a genteel-looking young man, with a bundle 
covered over with oil-skin on a stick, entered; 
and as there was but that one room with a fire 
in it, he hoped he might be permitted to sit there. 
On the company readily assenting to this, he 
stepped out, got rid of his great coat and boots, 
and entered the room gay as a butterfly emanci- 
pated from its chrysalis. 

This gentleman we found was a pedestrian 
tourist, and had crossed the channel from Gla- 
morganshire last, though he had been, during his 
excursion, through the greater part' of the other 
counties of South Wales, and was hurrying up to 
town to prepare his rambles for the press, for 
which he was so eager that he had got a prospectus 
of his intended work printed as he came along at 
Brecknock, and which he now handed about; 
and as it may justly be said to be an original, I 
send it you: " Speedily will be published, a 
Month's Excursion on Foot by an Ex-Treasury 
Clerk, through the Six Counties of South Wales ; 
in which the cream of all the former tourists, 
whether pedestrian, equestrian, gleaners, giglers, 
curriclers, or barouchers, is skimmed off, and a 
new itinerary syllabub whipped up ; embellished 
with several etchings of scenes never before sub- 
mitted to the pencil ; plates of numerous relics of 
antiquity ; and an appendix, containing many 
scarce and valuable documents from authentic ma- 



155 

nuscripts, among which Will be found a portrait 
of Henry VII. when Earl of Richmond, from an 
original done on the bottom of a trencher at a 
house in Cardiganshire, where he lay, on his way 
from Milford to Bos worth Field, with the point 
of a red-hot dagger by a Frenchman of the name 
of Brukbois, then in his retinue, and still shown 
with great pride by a descendant of that house, 
the present proprietor, who boasts to have some 
of the Tudor blood in his veins, from the adven- 
ture of that night, when it was shrewdly sus- 
pected that besides this coarse edition of himself 
in boards, the monarch left behind him a more 
finished one, hotpressed, in sheets ; together with 
an exact representation of the dagger, supposed to 
be one of the old Saxon seaxes, used in the mas- 
sacre of Stonehenge, the handle being of ivory, 
curiously wrought, ending in a female figure, and 
exactly agreeing with the account given of its 
form by the old British bards and chroniclers ; an 
engraving of a comb and mirror left by a mermaid 
surprised while sunning herself on a rock off the 
coast of Cardiganshire, and preserved by the son 
of the person who found them ; the comb made 
of a sort of mother of pearl, and the mirror of a 
substance like jet, but harder, of the highest po- 
lish, oval, and of the size of a battledore. 

" In the appendix, among many other rare 
articles, will be introduced an account of the first 
appearance of the sweating sickness, in a letter 
from Henry VII. to a merchant of the name of 
JVhite, of Tenby, and communicated by a gen- 

5 



156 

tleman of Bristol, whose ancestor, then an ap- 
prentice with the said Mr. White, copied it from 
the original, in French ; a treatise on the belief of 
Fetch Candles, by Jeremy Taylor, D. D. then 
Chaplain to Lord Car-bury, at Golden Grove, 
in Carmarthenshire ; a manuscript found among 
a bundle of old books and papers at a peasant's 
house, in the neighbourhood of that noble man- 
sion, soon after the fire that consumed it, about 
the beginning of the last century; and a cir- 
cumstantial account of the burning of Bishop 
Ferrar, in Lammas Street, Carmarthen, by a 
by-stander : the whole to conclude with three 
itinerant bed soliloquies, in blank verse, while 
the author's linen was washing." Exulting in 
the fascination of such a bill of fare, and full 
of the golden visions of approaching authorship, 
the little Treasury tourist slipping into his half- 
dry great coat and boots, left us, saying, that he 
meant to visit the ruins of Glastonbury that 
night. 

He was no sooner under w T ay than Jones, who 
had for some time with difficulty restrained his 
spleen, broke out into a vehement exclamation 
against the swarm of modern tourists that infested 
Wales every summer, and with whose crude per- 
formances the press was made to groan every 
winter, from the pitiful, piddling pedestrian, the 
walking W— — r, up to the pompous, pragmatical, 
petulant, plagiarist pedestrian too, though on 

stilts, M n. The same slobbered tale is still 

repeated, and is always worse told by Inrri that 



157 

tells it last; till, like college furniture, too often 
thirdcd, it becomes too threadbare for credit. 

How can a man, without knowing the language 
of the country he professes to travel through, and 
hurrying between showers, see any thing of, or 
procure such information as to enable him to 
write about it, who scarce ever deviates from the 
main road in search of any thing, and all whose 
new matter is taken from ostlers or chamber- 
maids? They may, indeed, serve up a miserable 
salmagundy from Leland, Speed, Camden, Tay- 
lor the water-poet, Drayton's Polyolbion, and 
old Churchyard. Half the book is filled with 
a detail of their own miseries; the process of 
cooking eggs and bacon ; the account of a fe- 
male barber; their invectives against a whole 
country because the landlord of a hedge-ale- 
house understands his own language better 
than theirs; because his wig did not well cover 
his ears; or his small-clothes were made of 
corderoy. 

Besides, a late quarto tourist had presumed to 
give from other performances, as history and fact, 
two or three passages which the gentleman who 
first gave them to the public told me had, in a 
playful sally of genius, been fabricated by him, 
as an experiment to see how easy it was to 
quiz the age, and become a successful literary 
impostor. 

He wished for a severe shower of criticism to 
brush away such insects, that multiply to the mis- 
leading all who wish for information and truth, 



15$ 

by adopting fraud and propagating error. He 
hoped he should yet live to see, for the honour of 
his own country, a native tourist spring up with 
the talents of a Pennant, an antiquary, a scholar, 
and a gentleman, who would undertake to ex- 
plore South Wales on the same plan as he did 
North Wales, and rescue it from insult and mis- 
representation. To his knowledge there were va- 
luable materials in the archives of many of the 
great houses of that part of the principality yet 
unsunned, but not inaccessible to a Welshman, 
properly introduced, and found competent to turn 
the treasures to account. 

" I think a Review," said one of our masquerad- 
ing friends, " conducted by gentlemen of fortune, 
independence, and learning, would be the means 
of reforming the press, and free it from the pros- 
titution it submits to now. I question much if 
this would not contribute more to the fostering 
genius than the Royal Institution, with all its 
boasted parade. In such an age, when new so- 
cieties are hourly forming, from the Blue-stocking 
to the Black-leg club, that men of fashion and 
talent cannot have the virtue to lay the plan of an 
association for the protection and advancement of 
literature, that would gain them immortal honour, 
instead of debasing themselves into stage-coach- 
men, or wasting their lives and fortunes in listen- 
ing to the rattle of the dice-box !" 

He said we were not happy in our private or 
p\iblic institutions, and instanced the Antiquarian 
Society, the principle of which he was entirely 



159 

deceived in, otherwise he never would have be- 
come a member of it. He was led to think that 
this society was formed of men all fond of anti- 
quities, and though not all, perhaps, skilled 
alike in illustrating the subjects that came before 
them, yet that it involved many who were equally 
capable as desirous of throwing a light on most 
of the curious articles that from time to time 
were transmitted to them for their inspection : 
but when he became a member, how was he 
disappointed to find it a mere temporary de- 
posit of coins, spear-heads, rude inscriptions, 
accounts of the contents of tumuli, of the 
wonderful nailstone, &c. furnishing materials 
for a costly volume every year ! He had 
always considered that the members of that So- 
ciety met to receive all communications, and dis- 
cuss the subject of each, whereby the literary 
world might be benefited, and the antiquities of 
the country elucidated and made subservient to 
history ; whereas the whole business of the meet- 
ing is taken up in absurd ceremonies. The secre- 
tary, supposing the article communicated to be a 
helmet, or any other piece of ancient armour, 
transmitted to that learned body from a gentleman 
in Yorkshire, accompanied by a letter giving an 
account of the place and other circumstances of 
its discovery, first reads the letter ; the venerable 
relic is then handed about in solemn silence from 
one member to the other, and after having made 
its circuit, returns to the secretary. Not a word 
is said all this time; a Quakers' meeting is no. 



160 

more silent Thanks are then voted to the gen- 
tleman for his communication, and this is repeated 
for three meetings. A letter, with the thanks of 
the society, is then sent to the person who pre- 
sented the article, together with the article itself, 
without any opinion or comment whatever, to the 
no small disappointment of the person by whom 
it was transmitted, who naturally expected such 
information as would have stamped a value on his 
now insignificant relic. 

" Now let me ask," added he, " of what 
possible use can this be? whereas, if any thing 
there produced were to undergo a learned dis- 
quisition from such of the members as un- 
doubtedly might be found there equal to the 
task ; the age, the nation, and the use of every 
thing liable to come before them, might be 
ascertained, and such investigation would un- 
avoidably lead to discoveries of the greatest im- 
portance to our national history, and literature in 
general. It would be something, indeed, if a per- 
manent museum, under the auspices of the Anti- 
quarian Society, involving men of the first rank, 
fortune, and talents, in the kingdom, were to be- 
established, accessible to every member, who 
might be at liberty to introduce any curious person, 
not of the society, to inspect it. This could not 
fail to be productive of its use ; but as it is now 
conducted, I consider it a piece of unmeaning 
mummery." 

Though our viaticum had been ordered at a 
^jiost unfashipnably early hour, so far as it con- 



161 

cerned food for the body; yet the mental repast 
carried us on to so late an hour, that neither of us 
seemed disposed to abridge the truly Attic enter- 
tainment of the evening ; we therefore agreed to 
pass the night where we were. To our temperate 
circulation of the glass tea, succeeded, and in the 
interval between tea and supper we mustered a. 
little concert, as we found that one of the strangers 
played the violincelto, and the other the violin, 
and had their instruments with them ; and you 
know that Jones plays most enchantingly on the 
flute. 

After supper we all sang in our turns : Signor 
Parvidoglio treated us with a most charming Ita- 
lian air; as did his companion Avith a French bac- 
chanal song, without an exception the most ex- 
quisitely characteristic song I ever heard, and 
to which, I think, Connoly, had he been present, 
who certainly is very fastidious, has too much 
taste not to allow merit. Jones gave us his glo- 
rious Welsh hunting song; and I brought up the 
rear with your favourite Irish air, O'Carrol's 
Whim, to your own elegant lines written during 
our fishing party near Mullingar, which is never 
heard, poor as the vehicle is, without being en- 
cored. 

Our concert over, we sat down to a supper pro- 
portionably early to our dinner, and had an hour 
after to devote to conversation over our negus, 
without trespassing too far on the night ; and we 
all did our best to supply it with topics. Our new 
acquaintance in what they introduced displayed 

* 



168 

great acuteness and novelty :: we talked of the 
old custom of drinking healths and giving toasts, 
as nearly exploded : " Why, then," says the counter- 
feit Italian, " there will be an end of drinking; for 
without some object, it is beastly to sit a whole 
evening over the bottle; whereas, let each glass 
be, as it were, a libation, the conviviality it pro- 
motes becomes the 

<e Feast of reason and the flow of soul." 

Let rigid moralists say what they will, I honour 
the memory of the then Archbishop of Canter- 
bury or York (I don't recollect which), who, in 
1716, wrote a treatise in defence of drinking King 
William's health ; or, in other words, the glorious 
Revolution. The same man would have written 
in defence of drinking the health of his mistress 
(I would not have it taken in a loose sense), the 
lady of his affections ; for, in spite of their silk 
fillybegs and lawn sleeves, they are men like us, 
and must have affections. No doubt with an eye 
to this, and scandalized at the immorality of the 
English metropolitan, Peter, the then Bishop of 
Cork, (and in Ireland, too !) wrote an octavo vo- 
lume, which I have in my library, on the profane- 
ness of drinking healths. I admire the taste of 
Martial's time, when they drank to every letter in 
their mistress's name. 

Naevia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur, 
Quinque Lycas, Lyde quatuor, Ida tribus." 

Martial, Lib. i. Ep. fj, 

I afeked Monsieur Sham nez, who, I understood, 
had travelled through Spain, if what I had heard, 



163 

of their being such slaves to fashion, or rather 
servile in their imitation of their superiors, was 
true. " I believe," said he, " it is, though it may 
not be carried quite so far as the Marquis de 
Langi£, in his Voyage d'Espagne, represents it, 
when he says, c A lord sets the fashion ; one came 
' to Madrid the other day, bald, humpbacked, and 
* a stutterer, and before night it was the rage.' 
But why need we travel out of England for in- 
stances of the almost magical power of fashion ? 
It is well known that to the hiding: deformities 
and defects, and to the making beauties more con- 
spicuous, we owe the greater part of those endless 
changes that are rung on dress, female dress par- 
ticularly; and yet, without tracing the new fashion 
to its origin, it is blindly followed by all alike. 
Some woman with a beautiful arm, and an elbow 
6 teres et rot u adits / like that of the l statue 
' which enchants the world/ first introduced the 
fashion of naked elbows, which was indiscrimi- 
nately followed, not only by every girl of seven- 
teen, but by every raw-boned, shrivelled hag of 
seventy. 

" The late Duchess of Devonshire, a singular 
compound of taste and frivolity, and who had a 
greater playfulness of imagination than ever fell 
to the share of her sex, when she first blazed on 
the town, as well to gratify her endless fertility of 
fancy, as to try how far the sceptre of fashion in 
her hands could extend its influence, played a 
thousand preposterous tricks with her dress : she 
once appeared at the theatre in a child's bib and 

M 2 



apron, and had she even carried her coral and 
pap-spoon about too, she would have had imita- 
tors. At another time, very early in spring, 
when thsoe vegetables were small, and extremely 
dear, she came in a head-dress ornamented 
with real carrots and turnips; and lo ! in two days 
time every milliner's shop displa} r ed an artificial 
kitchen-garden." Jones very justly remarked, 
that, though he should, in all things, endeavour 
to avoid extremes, he was ever an advocate for 
the mutability of fashion, let it arise from what 
source it might ; for in a manufacturing country 
it was, in his opinion, the main spring of trade :— 
a very patriotic sentiment, we all allowed, and 
worthy of a British subject ! 

Poetry, which both the strangers seemed partial 
to, and great judges of, was again brought on the 
carpet; when Signor Parvidoglio, addressing him- 
self to Jones — " Sir, as I perceive you are a fa- 
vourite of the Muses, and, if we may judge from 
the beautiful song you treated us with before? 
supper, are justly entitled to the name of poet, 
pray what is your opinion of Burns and Bloomrleld, 
whom of late it has been very much the fashion 
to admire r and, I am sorry to say, there is a fa- 
shion in poetry," — " Why," said Jones, " lam tired 
of carrying a glossary in my hand for ever, when I 
am labouring through the Ultra-Tweedian dialect 
of the former ; and after translating him, I may 
say, to find him simple to vulgarity, too local to 
be intelligible, and the whole too coarse a frieze 
for the loom of the Muses. And as for the latter* 



165 

like Holland's in painting, his subjects are always 
low and sordid, as minutely, but not as judiciously 
expressed. Morland's works are addressed only to 
the eye ; the other's to the eye and ear ; — one is 
never disgusted to see on Morland's canvass a duns:- 
cart filling in a farmer's yard ; or to see ■ greasy 
4 Joan' * keeling the pot,' or tending the hogs; 
but to have the detail of things so offensive — 
to have the sty analysed in verse ; hog- wash 
smoothly poured through twenty lines ; and to be 
told the grunt of every hungry pig, is too much 
for the Muses, who are delicate ladies, to bear." 

" Then I am happy, Sir," observed our Italian 
mask, " to think as you do ; I don't object to their 
poetry because they are men in humble life : Stephen 
Duck, the laureat, who tickled the ears of Majesty 
with his strains many years for his butt of sack, was 
a thresher, but he had the discretion to throw aside 
the flail when he assumed the laurel : and at Bath, 
the other day, I was shown a little poem by my 
bookseller, written by a stone-mason, and a coun- 
tryman of yours, a Mr. Edward Williams ; but it 
did not smack of the hod and trowel ; it was 
simple, but elegant; all was nature, but she was 
not in fdth and rags ; and when there was need of 
sublimity, I perceived he could stretch an eagle 
wing as if he had often taken his flight from the 
highest peak of Parnassus. The poem was an ad- 
dress to the rivers which the poet's mistress had to 
cross in her way from Old Mona to the shrine of 
St. David's, coastwise ; a translation from a noted 
bard of his day, Davydd ap G wilim, the Welsh 

M 3 



166 

Tibulius, a. specimen that throws such poetical 
coblers as Burns and Bioomfield far into the back 
ground. 

" I have been much in Wales, and have been 
struck with the great quickness and sagacity of the 
meanest peasant; their thoughts, like their lan- 
guage, are those of an original people ; and had 
they the suppleness of the inhabitants beyond the 
Tweed, and could get more into the habit of 
booing, I am well assured that they have talents 
to suit any situation they might ' be thrown into : 
the pride ant} independence you boast of, will 
always keep you unknown; I confess they are 
honourable feelings, but the world has a loss 
At this moment had we not, as it were, mechani- 
cally, looked at our watches, this panegyric was 
in a fair way of being continued, to the great ex- 
ultation, as you may suppose, of Jones, who is 
the most national creature breathing: it was just 
on the stroke of twelve, and we all seemed dis- 
posed to retire, particularly our stranger compa- 
nions, who were obliged to be ofT early, to reach 
their place of destination to breakfast. The time 
we had been together had' passed so much to our 
mutual satisfaction, that we parted with some 
degree of regret. My Cambrian friend, though 
as vivacious as any man in company, and with no 
somnolency near him, yet when the hour of rest 
is announced, is always prepared to sacrifice to 
Morpheus, audi tells me, that from the moment he 
lays his head upon the pillow, he is asleep, and 
seldom wakes till his usual hour of getting up. 



167 

This is a luxury, and a luxury it certainly must 
be ; you have often heard me say, I have no con- 
ception of it, having always been a bad sleeper ; 
don't wonder, then, that to finish my letter I have 
sat out my fire, and outmatched the waiter. Adieu ! 
and with anxious expectation of finding a packet 
from you at Stourton, where we propose being to- 
morrow night, believe me, 

Yours, &c. 

P. S. Jones, just as he was retiring, handed me 
the inclosed poem, the effect of the Muses' ges- 
tation on the cold summit of Dunkery, while we 
were in the act of violating those primitive sepul- 
chres that crown it, and which I had promised to 
send you. 

That plaint again ! was it the howling blast ? 
Again that shadow ! 'twas a cloud that pass'd ; 
Oh ! no j — for see I not a giant form 
Half hid in mists incumbent on the storm ? 
A more than human voice methinks I hear ; — ■ 
Or broke the distant thunder on my ear ? 
" Tis not the thunder on thy ear that breaks, 
It is the spirit of the mighty speaks j 
That, hov 'ring round these death-devoted piles. 
Th' inactive sabbath of the grave beguiles. — 
Then, wretch, forbear, suspend thy impious deeds. 
Know in each stroke no vulgar victim bleeds. 
The stated flux of many a thousand tides 
Has lash'd this sea-confining mountain's sides } 
And springs of thousand ages dews have shed 
To flower the heath that blooms around the dead, 
Since first upon this solitary waste, 
With mystic rites, jny sacred urn was plac'd ; 
M 4 



168 

Fill'd by the Druids from th' extinguished pyre, 

And virgin guardians of th' eternal fire. 

Barbarian ! yet till thine no hand profane, 

Scythian or Roman, Saxon or the Dane, 

Has dar'd the grave's dark secrets to betray, 

And give my dust irrev'rently to day : 

E'en they, all reeking from their bloody toil, 

And insolent with conquest, and with spoil, 

With rev'rence gaz'd on the stupendous mound, 

And trod with chilling awe this hallow'd ground.—- 

Yet callest thou thyself of British race ? 

Renounce the spurious title j rather trace 

To the fell Saxon, or more murd'rous band 

Of fierce sea-kings that once overspread this land. 

Perhaps thou think'st I liv'd unknown to fame, 

A savage of these wilds, without a name : — 

Know, that to sway a sceptre was my boast, 

From Ex's fountain to the Severn's coast : 

At Dunkery's rough base my palace rose, 

Whose site the still remaining rampart shows ; 

With thorns o'ergrown, and now become th' abode 

Of beasts obscene, the serpent and the toad; 

Where circling mead united rival kings, 

And rival bards maintain'd the strife of strings : 

Above was seen the mountain's front of snow, 

And Horner's torrent waters rag'd below. — 

Here o'er the boundless heath I drove my car, 

And practis'd in the chase the mimic war; 

For real war ne'er shook my peaceful throne, 

Safe in my people's guardian love alone : 

I saw the wandering rider of the main, 

Yet never panted to enlarge my reign : 

The Tyrian I forbade not to explore 

My earth's rich bowels for the tempting ore j 

He gave in vain to my undazzled view 

Gems that refracted rays of every hue -, 

Yet breath'd ! not a wish by impious trade, 

Which prompts mad man through seas of blood to wade, 



169 

In distant climes to seek the flaming mine, ' 

Of peace destructive, where such baubles shine : 

He saw his metal well supplied by stone, 

And polish'd iv'ry rivall'd by my bone j 

Saw that the sea, my native factor, brought 

The jet and amber to my coasts unsought. 

No wonder then, that, curious to behold, 

All richly studded, and o'erlaid with gold, 

The stranger's gift, the dagger by my side, 

Slept in its scabbard useless and untried ; 

For ne'er in wrath my bended bow I drew, 

Ne'er, wing'd with death, my flint-tipp'd arrow flew, 

Save when the branching victim was decreed, 

In aid of regal luxury, to bleed j 

Or when a horde of that ferocious brood, 

Whose trade was robb'ry, and whose sport was blood, 

Dark ocean rovers, chanc'd to touch my land, 

And left their limbs to bleach along the strand j 

Sad monument ! to mark to distant times 

What certain vengeance waits such daring crimes ; 

To punish those who Freedom's sons provoke, 

Man lifts the arm, but Heaven directs the stroke. 

Freedom ! at thy dear mention I would fain 

Reanimate my clay, and live again. — 

Thou first, best gift, the strongest proof of love 

To mortals ever granted from above ! 

How wert thou wont to glad my happy plains ! 

Where but the shadow of thy name remains i 

And, ah ! I see with sorrow everyday 

That e'en this shade is flitting fast away : 

And are there they — be vengeance on them huiTd ! 

Who wish it fairly banish'd from the world ? 

Yes ! — there's a monster, to whom hell gave birth, 

And let him loose to desolate the earth 5 

Who, trampling man, almost defies his God, 

Idol of Gaul, beneath whose iron rod 

The nations of the world are taught to bend, 

Save Britain onlv, Britain to the end. 



m 

Girt with her azure zone, may she disdai* 

Basely to drag the tyrant's galling chain, 

And, firm in native energy, oppose 

Hers, and the worst of human nature's foes j 

Preserve her birthright to her latest breath, 

And leave the proud inheritance in death ! 

Oh ! that I could, to combat in her cause, 

Fate's chain unbinding, alter Nature's laws ! 

Oh ! that my ashes could to life awake, 

A separate form my every atom take > 

As from the dragon's teeth when sown, of yore, 

The soil a sudden crop of warriors bore > 

Then would I urge thy violence to bare 

My dust prolific, nor entreat to spare > 

Myself had then been foremost to have bless'd 

The thought that led to violate my rest ; 

Ample atonement wouldst thou then have made, 

And thus propitiate my offended shade. 

Though to my dust be miracles denied, 

Yet there less powerful virtues may reside :-— 

Then scatter wide my relics to the gale, 

That every breath the hero may inhale. 

In this wide amphitheatre on high, 

Beneath the grand pavilion of the sky, 

Here let remote posterity convene, 

(A cloud of power, I will invest the scene,) 

Here let my sons, and let their aged sires, 

Vet'rans from whose yet unextinguish'd fires 

May be deriv'd as much as needs of flame 

To light up glory in the youthful frame, 

Meet round this pile, and, as at holiest shrine, 

Their hands in pact inviolable twine ; 

And, more to sanctify the solemn rite, 

Oh ! may not only hands, but hearts nnite.„ 

Till like one man become, and pledges given 

Of union firm, by dread appeals to Heaven. 

In one compatriot vow they shall agree 

$V die like Britons, or continue free V* 



171 



Sionrton, November *J , ISO?. 
UY D£AH CHARLES, 

Having not started early from Pipers 
Ian, it was dark when we alighted at the inn of 
this place ; and as we were not a little fatigued by 
a journey tl*e most unpleasant I ever had, in 
which the little we saw of the country was by 
snatches between the showers of snow; we were 
not inclined to be very fastidious as to our accom- 
modations, but this house seemed to indicate a 
competency to supply every comfort tliat hungry 
and fatigued travellers might require. 

A large party of people of fashion, who in 
their transit towards Bath had stopped to see 
Stourhead, had taken an early dinner there, and 
were just gone, so there was an apology made 
for introducing us into a smaller room, the best 
room being in too much disorder; the very thing 
that suited us, as, after what we had undergone, 
all day, " snug was the wont;" and snug we 
found every thing, to the utmost latitude of its 
meaning. Hearing: that there was a <>reat deal of 
company at Sir Richard Hoare's, we came to a re- 
solution of not delivering our credentials from 
Holnicote, which we accepted conditionally, con- 
cluding that we should feel ourselves much more 
independent, s and be freed from the toil and cere- 
mony that must naturally result from the intro- 
duction they were likely to procure. 

As our hasty repast on the road did not de*ei ve 



172 

the name of dinner, we were both well disposed 
to order supper in good time ; and now have 
feasted sumptuously, and sufficiently early, so as 
to admit, without trespassing on the reasonable 
Iiours of rest, before we retire, of my giving you 
an account of our travels of this day, and of 
Jones passing an hour in his hortus siccus. 

It being rather late before we took our depar- 
ture from Piper's Inn, our transit through the 
country we passed was too rapid to allow of any 
digression from our road, or of any stopping. 
The little we saw of the country, as I have already 
hinted, was by snatches ; and that little, to eyes 
accustomed to the charming scenery of Wales, 
and that part of Somersetshire we had just vi- 
sited, so different in its aspect, so tame, and so 
monotonous, was very insipid indeed : — a great 
deal of low lands all overflowed, and the little 
swells crowned with windmills; so that if we had 
been Quixotes, we should not have wanted such 
giants to encounter with. The highest point that 
met our eye during a temporary suspension of the 
fog, was Glastonbury Tor, the only ancient part 
left of that once splendid monastery, a very con- 
spicuous object ; but what is remarkable, this 
fragment only, as we were informed, belongs, or 
did lately belong, to Sir Richard Hoare ; so that 
he could boast of possessing two of the finest ob- 
servatories in the kingdom : this Tor, and Alfred's 
Tower, in his own grounds at Stourhead, both 
commanding a view of each other. 

To you, who have, I believe, all Dugdale s Mo- 



173 

nasticon by heart, and of course must be well 
versed in the history of Glastonbury, it would be 
an insult should I attempt to compress the various 
legends I have read, and have heard from my 
fellow-traveller on the road, of its origin, to give 
any thing like consistency to which seems ex- 
tremely difficult. 

"What is your opinion of the account given of 
the discovery of Arthur's grave ? Credulity may 
certainly be indulged to a weakness ; but is not 
the opposite quality too often carried to such 
lengths as to induce the possessors to question 
things as clear as the noon-day sun? It is no 
wonder that by many the finding the body of Ar- 
thur should be disputed, notwithstanding the 
plausible evidence that is adduced to prove that 
fact, when there are those, and, I believe, Hume 
among the number, who doubt that such a man 
ever existed. The Britons for many ages could not 
be persuaded but that he was still alive, especially 
as the manner of his death was not clearly ascer- 
tained (there being at that time a policy in giving 
a mysterious air to his disappearance, like that of 
Romulus), or the place of his interment kuown ; 
a circumstance referred to in a prophecy of Mer- 
lin, and in that curious fragment of Taliessin 
called the Grave of the Warriors : 

" The grave of the steed, the grave of the 
man of conflict, the grave of Gwgan with the 
ruddy sword, and the grave of Arthur, are mys- 
teries of the world." 

To confirm the hereditary prejudices of his 



174 

countrymen, long after his time, in supposing 
their favourite hero, if not immortal, at least not 
dead, my fellow-traveller has furnished from his 
note-book, half a dozen of which he always car- 
ries about with him, written in his clear small 
band, containing the essence of every author 
who has treated of British history, some very 
curious documents, which you have below*. 
He says that there were two Arthurs, a real 
and a mythological character; the Arthur of 
romance and the Arthur of history, who are 



* '*■ Ipse verb Arthurus, juxta Merlini vaticinium, dubinni 
jhabet exitura, quia utrum vivat an mortuus fuerit, nemmi eer- 
tuRi estimatur esse," inquit Vincentius Belloracensis. 

" Verissime quidera, addit Merlini interpres, Alanus Insufensis, 
sictit hodieque pfobat varia homirmm de morte ejus et vita opinio. 
Quod si mihi non credas, vade in Armoricura regnum, id est, t» 
niinorern Britanniam, et prsedica per plateas et vkos, Artharem 
Britonem more c^^nim mortuorum mortUum esse: et tunc 
certe reipsa probabis, veram esse Merlini prophetiam, qua ait> 
Artnuri exitum dubium fore. : si tarnen im-munis evadere inde 
potuefisj quin ant malediciis audientlum. oppriraaris, aut certe 
iapidibus Groans-. Hunc enim Britones tantse £amse tantaeque 
gloria, virum nulla ratione adduci possunt ut morfcuum eredant, 
prcesertim cum in nullis annaiibus inveniri possit scripture^ ubi- 
nam vel mortuus fuerit vel sepultns ; sect omnis, a^ poene omnis 
ilia' natio adhuc eum in insula Aballonis, quo lethaliter vulneratus 
efcratum deportatus est deiitefe, ac vivere o^lnantur. C&uibus et 
jllud Radulphi Nigri addere possumus. Quia Britannrca historic 
de ejus morte nil certum tradidit ; Britones eum adhuc vivere 
*ielirant. Et Mathaei Florilegi quod sequitur : 

" Occultavit se rex moribundus ne casui tanto insultarent 
mmiici; amicique molestarentur. Unde, quoniam de morte Arthuri 
vel ejus sepultura nihil referunt historiab, gens Britonnm ipsuife 
idhuc vivere^ prse m'agnitudine dilectionis, eontendunt." 

5 



175 

too often confounded, and hence all the incon- 
sistences which render the existence of the latter 
doubted. The Silurian chief who w T as elected to 
the sovereignty of Britain, was not only a patron 
of the bards, but said to have been a bard him- 
self, and is recorded in one of the Triads, that 
curious British chronicle, by threes, as one of the 
irregular bards, with two others, the life of a 
warrior being incompatible with the profession of 
bardism, the basis of which was universal peace. 
Jones tells me that there is one poem preserved 
that has been ascribed to him, of which lie has 
favoured me with the translation of two or three 
stanzas, though, he says, the spirit of the original 
must unavoidably evaporate by an attempt to 
transfuse it into a language too w r eak to folio \v 
the flight of the Gwentian rhapsody. You will 
find this animated fragment as a rider at the end. 
The subject of the poem appears to be a descrip- 
tion of his knights companions of the round table; 
and the poem has the reputation of being handed 
down hereditarily in a family near Caerleon, in 
Monmouthshire, where Arthur held his court, and 
which boasts to trace its lineage to that illustrious 
monarch's cupbearer. Jones transcribed it from 
a manuscript that seemed to have been in the pos- 
session of the great antiquary, Edward Lhwyd. 
by the marginal notes he had introduced in his 
own band- writing. In pursuing Arthur I am got 
widely out of my course ; but had I continued in 
it, my progress would have been next to a blank ; 
as, after Glastonbury Tor, what with fog and dark- 



176' 

ness, we were not treated with the sight of any 
thing six yards out of the road. The last thing 
that presented itself while daylight lasted was 
the park wall (keeping us company for a full 
mile) of Red Lynch, an old seat of the Earl of 
Ilchester, but which, I understand, has not been 
regularly inhabited by the noble family it belongs 
to for several years, but is left at the mercy of two 
most destructive occupants, rat and dry rot, to get 
rid of which no process of ejectment has yet been 
discovered. After passing this, night shut in 
upon us, and all was terra incognita till we were 
unchaised at this comfortable inn, where neatness 
and quiet contend for the mastery. Jones, who 
is at another table, in the midst of his herbarium, 
has just reminded me of his Arthurian stanzas, 
so I must close my letter, to make room for this 
very curious fragment, or his nationality will be 
offended. 

Yours, &c. 

* Spread be my board round as the hoop f of 
the firmament, and as ample as my heart, that 
there may be no first or last, for odious is distinc- 
tion where merit is equal. 

Who is he with his spear yet dripping with 
gore? It is MeurigJ, the eagle of Dyved, the 



Notes in Ed. LwhycCs Hand. 
* This clearly alludes to his famed round table. 
f The words in the original signify the horizon. 
£ Meurig was a Regulus of Pjved, or Pembrokeshire, and 



177 

terror of the Saxons : lie gave a banquet to the 
wolves at Ccvyn Hiraeth^. Woe be to him who 
meets him in His wrath ! 

I have heard Ills shout ! T was the sound of 
death ! His guards of Cemaes || exulted ; like 
lightning flashed their blades around him — the 
signal of blood. They know no sheaths but the 
body of the foe. 

The whirlwind of war is hushed. A lion 
among roses is Meurig in peace ; mild as a sun- 
beam in spring, in the circling of the festal horn *, 
when the womb of the harp quickens at his touch, 

said to be one of the four who bore golden swords before Arthur 
at his coronation-feast. Most of the gentry of Cemaes trace 
their pedigrees to hira. 

\ There is a place on the confines of Pembrokeshire of this 
name j that is, the mountain of longing or desire, literally -, but 
here Hiraeth is used as desiderium in Latin sometimes for grief, 
as in that passage of Horace : 

** Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus.** 

And on this spot I was shown hundreds of little hillocks, by tra- 
dition graves of those who fell in battle, it having been the scene 
of a sharp conflict between the Saxons and the Welsh, and no 
doubt the same that is here mentioned. 

|| That district of Pembrokeshire where it is said he had his 
palace, at Llan Nyfer, and probably on that spot which after- 
wards the Normans occupied, and where the Lord Rhys was in 
durance. 

* The heroes of Cambria, like Homer's, were accustomed to 
solace themselves with music during their short intervals of rest 
from their martial labours. 

N 



178 

or when he conquers in the little battle [ of the 
chequered board. 

Son of Urien % thy place is here. In the strife 
of blood Owen and Meurig were inseparable ; — 
twin lions ! they fought side by side, and at the 
feast shall they be divided? Beset with foes, the 
barbed steel once reached Meurig's breast; Owen 
spread his shield before his wounded friend. The 
G wyddelians saw his ravens §, and fled ; he pur- 
sued, and the Cynhen ran reel with blood. Urien, 
thy fame is with the bard ; but Urien can never 
die whilst Owen lives. 



f Out of bach, little, and cammawn, battle, sprang lack' 
gammon ; and there can be no doubt but the game here alluded 
to was chess j a game that, I was told by my antiquarian friend, 
the Worshipful John Lewis, Esq. of Munarnawan, in Pem- 
brokeshire, was understood by the most unlettered peasants of 
Cemaes, as if inherited from the time of Meurig. To this gen- 
tleman's communications from a finely illuminated pedigree, that 
traces his family to Arthur's illustrious guest, I am indebted for 
these notes. And the coat armour which Mr. Lewis bears, viz. 
azure, a lion rampant in an orle of roses, or, may solve the ex- 
pression used above, of a lion among roses. 

j This was a prince of the northern Britons, who came to 
South Wales to the aid of the sons of Cunedda, to expel the 
Gwyddelians, and was recompensed with a portion of territory in 
Carmarthenshire; and some say he built Caercynhen Castle, a 
very strong fortress on a high rock above the river Cynhen. 

§ The cognisaunce of his shield was three ravens, the coat 
still borne by Mr. Rice, of Newton, and all the other families 
who boist their descent from him. 



179 



Stourhead, November S, 1807, 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

After a night of delicious repose, in 
which I discharged all my arrear of sleep, I rose 
with recruited spirits, and a mind in harmony 
with every thing around me. I had often heard 
of the inn at Stourhead being delightfully situ- 
ated, and well conducted ; but I found it exceed 
every expectation that could have been raised ; 
for when I opened my windows in the morning, 
it was like magic, for the night being dark when 
we arrived, we could have formed no idea of the 
scene which presented itself in the morning, as it 
looks into the most charming part of the gardens 
and pleasure-grounds, which come up to, and, as 
it were, mix with the village, consisting of the 
church, the inn, and a few neat houses, overrun 
with the climatis and the Chinese rose, then in 
rich bloom, inhabited by the steward and the mar- 
ried servants of Stourhead. 

After breakfast we debated how we were to 
commence our operations for the day, and it was 
determined to visit the house and its paintings, 
&c. first ; particularly as the weather, there hav- 
ing a good deal of snow fallen in the night, was 
unfavourable for viewing the pleasure-grounds. 

The mansion-house of Stourhead is built on an 
extensive lawn, having a very parkish appear- 
ance, with here and there a few line old trees of 
various sorts, intermixed with hawthorns of large 



180 

growth, and commands a most extensive, pic- 
turesque, and rich view in front, charmingly di- 
versified, including several very delightful objects ; 
such as the woods and broken grounds in the far- 
thest distance, round Wardour Castle ; in the se- 
cond, the cheerful variety of Knoyle, the hill of 
Shaftesbury, woods and tower of Fon thill ; and 
still nearer the eye, the finely undulating ridge 
•crowned with the castle . of Mere, several fine co- 
nical hills ; the whole bounded on one side by the 
soft and sinuous outline of the downs terminating 
there, and producing, by contrast with the richly 
wooded landscape they skirt, the most pleasing 
effect. The present mansion does not occupy the 
site of that once inhabited by the Stourton fa- 
mily, but another higher up on the lawn, better 
chosen, and was built anew after a design of 
Colin Campbell, the greatest architect of his day, 
which was published in his Vitruvius Britannicus; 
but two wings have within these few years been 
added by the present possessor, Sir Richard 
Hoare. The architecture is simple, and in the 
Italian style. Few houses can boast of a hand- 
somer ground-flooT, or four such rooms as the 
entrance-hall, picture-gallery, library, and saloon. 
To avoid the inconvenience of a show-house, so 
that the family might not be liable to intrusion, 
or the visitors to disappointment, it has been di- 
vided into two compartments, separated, as it 
were, by the entrance-hall and staircase. The di- 
vision to the right, dedicated to show and the 
public, contain? all the most valuable original pic- 



181 

tures, &c. Sec. ; that on the left, dedicated to 
study, convenience, and domestic comfort, con- 
tains only the inferior pictures. The whole col- 
lection merits a catalogue raisonne, and I wish 
I was equal to the task ; but I shall not expose 
myself by affecting to speak of the masters, 
whose names, perhaps, I never heard of be- 
fore, as my acquaintance, or of the merits of 
their works, as if I was qualified to decide 
on them ; to do which properly, requires ta- 
lents I am conscious that I do not possess, 
and cannot presume to challenge. However, 
as I know you are an amateur, having from your 
childhood lived among fine paintings, and a little, 
of an artist too, I shall not pass them over totally 
in silence, but shall enumerate the most remark- 
able, and tell you, perhaps, how I was affected 
by some of them. 

The entrance-hall is appropriately hung with 
family pictures. The next room, to the right, in 
the show wing, is filled entirely with landscapes, 
among which three are particularly deserving of 
notice, viz. a landscape by Claude Lorrain; ano- 
ther by Gaspar Poussin ; and a night-scene by 
Rembrandt. There are also two fine pictures by 
Vernet; two by Wilson, whose delightful imita- 
tion of nature struck even me ; how much more 
then Jones, whose admiration was heightened by 
nationality, and not very remote kindred ; one by 
Marlow; two by Canaletti ; and a most charming 
one representing a morning scene, by our coun- 
tryman Gainsborough. This is called the cabinet 4 

3* S 



182 



room, from a most sumptuous cabinet that occu- 
pies a recess on one side of it, that originally be- 
longed to Pope Sixtus V. and ornamented with 
his own portrait, and twenty others of the Peretti 
family, to which he was allied. Its structure, 
which is remarkably elegant, involves every order 
and style of architecture, and among its superb 
decorations its variegated inlay displays specimens 
of all the richest marbles, and of all the known 
precious stones in the world, the diamond excepted. 
The festooned curtain of blue velvet, richly fringed 
with gold, issuing out of a gilt mitre over the 
centre of the arched recess, and falling in fine 
folds of drapery on each side, is disposed of 
with great taste and effect. In the ante-room 
leading to the gallery there is one most superb 
picture by Carlo Dolce, representing Herodias 
with John the Baptist's head on a charger: the 
face of the beautiful female figure is finely charac- 
teristic of the passions that might be supposed to 
divide her breast; vindictive exultation almost 
subdued by pity : the appearance of death in the 
head is beyond what I thought the power of co- 
lours could have produced ; and the execution of 
the whole picture is admirably delicate. Here is 
also a most spirited battle-piece by Borgognorie, 
and a dignified portrait of a cardinal by Domeni- 
chino, in his best manner. We now enter the 
noble apartment dedicated to the works of the 
Italian school; among which some may justly be 
esteemed chef-d'ceuvres of the art. The Rape of 
the Sabines, by Nicolo Poussim, is esteemed the 



183 

mest work he ever executed ; and a smaller pic- 
ture by the same master, representing Hercules 
between Virtue and Vice, does not yield to the 
larger for chasteness and correctness of design. 
Next to this picture is a Holy Family, by Fra 
Bartolomeo, a cotemporary of Raphael, who flou- 
rished from the year 1469 to 1517. A large alle- 
gorical picture by Carlo Maratti, in which his 
own portrait, as well as that of his patron, the 
Marquis Pallavicini, are introduced. The centre 
compartment of the room is filled by a very large 
and magnificent picture by Lodovico Cigoli, 
painted in the year 1605 ; the subject, the Adora- 
tion of the Magi ; it is in the highest preserva- 
tion, and its colours as vivid and brilliant as if 
painted yesterday. The next picture that attracts 
attention, and that most forcibly, is the finest 
representation I ever expect to see of a female 
suppliant, Cleopatra on her knees at the feet of 
the stern, phlegmatic, cold-blooded Augustus; a 
figure so fascinatingly beautiful, in an attitude so 
exquisitely touching, that if such was Cleopatra, 
who would not have said with Anthony. " All 
for Love, or the World well lost? 1 ' A Madona 
and Child, by Guercino, has great claim on no- 
tice; as have a fine altar-piece, by Andrea del 
Sarto ; an old woman's head by Murillo ; the por- 
trait of a o*irl in the character of St. Agnes, by 
Titian; the Marriage of St. Catharine, by Fa- 
roccio; a Holy Family, by Leonardo da Vinci; the 
Flight into Egypt, by Carlo Maratti; and two 
little choice pictures by Schidoni. But the pic- 

x 4 



184 

ture that of all others most struck me represents the 
Prophet Elijah restoring the dead child to life, by 
Rembrandt ; which for interest of feeling, truth of 
expression, and fine execution, may rival any 
work of the same master; and I think I may 
yenture to challenge the whole school of painting 
to produce any thing superior to the character of 
the Prophet, as expressive of the confidence of 
faith and the fervour of prayer. Two large mo- 
dern pictures have been admitted into this gal- 
lery, and, for the credit of the artist who exe- 
cuted them, they do not disgrace their situation 
among their elders ; the subject of one is the 
Shipwrecked Sailor-boy, from an idea of Thom- 
son the poet; the subject of the other the Death 
of the Dragon by Red-cross Knight, from Spenser ; 
both productions of the pencil of Mr. H. Thomp^ 
son, of the Royal Academy. 

Repassing the hall you come to an ante-chamr 
ber, lighted by a cupola, which separates it from 
the great room called the saloon, and includes the 
staircase, whose walls are hung round with very 
choice landscapes, over which drops a curtain of 
green silk, to preserve them from the sun. Be- 
yond this room, ancl entered by a door exactly 
facing that which leads to the hall, is a most 
splendid ropm, the saloon, near fifty feet long, if 
I might judge from my paces,, and of propor- 
tionable width and height, used occasionally as 
a dining-parlour for large companies, and other 
great entertainments. The ceiling is richly and 
singularly ornamented; all its small divisions 



being thrown into perspective : it is furnished in 
ev r ery way with a style of magnificence to suit 
the character of the apartment. The pictures are 
very large, and were painted to fit the different 
pannels of the room. The chimney-piece, of the 
finest white marble, is uncommonly superb, as to 
design and execution ; but every thing, to the 
doors, and the minutest article of furniture, is in 
true proportion. 

When the door of this room, which faces the 
great window at the end of it, happens to be 
open, as well as the opposite door of the hall, in 
which state I saw them, the effect is uncommonly 
striking, as you see at once the whole depth of 
the house, and gain a most pleasing view on 
either side, through the window of the saloon, of 
an open part of the grounds, studded with a few 
trees, terminating by the obelisk, backed by noble 
woods, and in front of that richly diversified pro- 
spect already described. 

A great deal of the day was consumed, as we 
could not be said to go over our ground cursorily, for 
we were so fortunate as to join a lady and gentle- 
man who in their way to Bath had stopped that 
morning to see Stourhead. The gentleman seemed 
a great amateur and critic in pictures, and was 
very diffuse in his comments on the different mas* 
ters, seemingly with perfect knowledge of his 
subject; and to this accident, perhaps, you are 
indebted for such an account of the pictures as I 
have given you. He gave us several curious anec- 
dotes of the different painters, particularly those 



ISff 



of our own country; he said Wilson was ori- 
ginally a portrait-painter, and that it was to Ca- 
naletti at Venice, who first discovered his talent 
for landscape, and encouraged him to apply to 
that line, that we owe the boast of having pro- 
duced so celebrated an artist ; and yet so low was 
the taste for painting in Wilson's early time, that 
he heard from the only pupil that Wilson ever had, 
a Mr. Jones, that Cock the auctioneer, the Christie 
of that day, for one of Wilson's best pictures, 
that now would fetch five hundred pounds, could 
get no more (and thought that a great price) than 
ten pounds. 

Finding that the library, of which we had heard 
so much, was occupied by the learned Baronet the 
whole morning, the day having proved unfavour- 
able to the sports of the field, but that the follow- 
ing day it might be seen, we attended our con- 
noisseur companion and his lady to their chaise, 
and after traversing the lawn, then sprinkled with 
a flock of South- down sheep, from one lodge to the 
other, both possessing a character of the most ele- 
gant simplicity, we returned to our inn to order our 
dinner, meaning, while that was getting ready, to 
make use of the little daylight left in a stroll not 
too distant; yet the weather not improving, but 
growing worse, we were obliged to limit our ope- 
rations of the day to what we had already seen, 
and reconcile ourselves to confinement for the rest 
of it within doors, as it began to snow. How- 
ever, we had this satisfaction, that our accommo- 
dations were something more than comfortable ; 
% 



187 

the res culinaria, were we even epicures, not ob- 
jectionable; and the wine most excellent; over 
which, after shutting out the storm, with the aid 
of a fine fire of Radstock coal, we truly enjoyed 
ourselves. We conversed on various topics ; and 
among- others, fetch-candles, ghosts, Welsh lan- 
guage, and literary impostors, had a share of dis- 
cussion. Having exhausted our stock of conver- 
sation, we betook ourselves to our journals and 
particular studies ; Jones, to arrange his botanical 
acquisitions; and I, to examine my late purchase of 
the Shakespearian manuscripts, and finish the 
perusal of Sir Richard Hoare's Tour through Ire- 
land, the companion of my travels. 

Among the fragments ascribed to Shakespeare, 
I have been much struck with several of the little 
poetical pieces, full of quaint and brilliant con- 
ceits, and smacking strongly of the great drama- 
tist's playful manner. But the most interesting 
portion of it consists of letters that passed be- 
tween him, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Philip 
Sidney, Lord Southampton, Richard Sadleir, 
Henry Cuffe, &c. ; part of a journal, like most 
journals, carried on for a month together, then 
suspended during a period of four or rive 
years ; and memoirs of his own time written by 
himself. Some of the items are uncommonly 
curious, as they give you not only the costume 
of the age he lived in, but let you into his 
private ami domestic life, and the rudiments of 
his vast conception. As the volume professing 
it. elf to I e a. transcript of an old manuscript eoi- 



188 

lection found in a state of such decay as to reildef 
it necessary, on account of a curious process 
made use of, to sacrifice the original to the copy, 
is prefaced with a short history of its discovery, 
and the proofs of its authenticity; I believe I 
shall, if ever I succeed in my Hwlfordd adven- 
ture, and have leisure to arrange it, publish the 
whole ; yet in the mean time I will not so far 
tantalize you as not to treat you with a specimen 
of this curious farrago, but shall tack on to this 
letter a small sample of the prose and verse. 

Preparing to retire, I have closed the Irish 
Tour, and am induced, from a passage I have just 
been reading, to ask you if the disgraceful custom 
of taking vails, censured in it, is so generally pre- 
valent with you. Sir Richard Hoare says, " It 
has been justly remarked, and with credit to the 
higher class of society in Ireland, that it is easier 
for a stranger to find his way into their houses 
than out of them. Abolish the vale parting token 
which the menial servants in many houses expect, 
and Irish hospitality is complete." But I fear that 
it is not in Ireland alone that this most illiberal of 
all customs is found to obtain. Notwithstanding 
the abolition of it in many houses over England, to 
my knowledge, as it is not universal, the root of 
the evil remains, and, like all noxious growth, is 
known to spread apace. To get rid of it effec- 
tually, the whole kingdom must concur in a reso- 
lution to extirpate it, for, if but one fibre is left, 
it will again propagate. It is in vain for one spi- 
rited farmer to use every possible method to rid 



189 

his land of moles, if his neighbours around are 
not equally attentive, and disposed to combat the 
evil ; and so it is with respect to vails ; the root- 
ing it out should become a national object, or the 
inconvenience will never be removed. The gen- 
tlemen of Norfolk once, at the great session, took 
it into consideration, and at that public season of 
meeting fell on such resolutions as freed the 
county from this odious tax on hospitality. Oh ! 
that all counties would follow such a laudable 
example * ! 

My botanical companion, as well as myself, is 
more under the influence of the poppy than any 
other plant, at present ; so adieu for to-night, and 
believe me ever 

Yours, &c. 



Out of a Manuscript Collection of Pieces in Prose 
and Verse, said to be written by Shakespeare 
to his Wife and others. 



WITH A RINGE IX FORME OF A SERPENT, A GIFT TO 
HIS BELOVYD ANNA, FROM W. S. 

Withinn this goulden circlette's space, 

Thie yvorie fingers form'd to clippe, 
How manie tender vows have place, 

Seal'd att the altaur on mie lippe. 

* The placard they published was to this effect : — ff January 1, 
1766. — In pursuance of a regulation proposed and agreed to by 
the grand jury and principal gentlemen of the county of Nor- 
folk, the custom of giving vails to servants ceases in that county." 



190 

Then as thie finger it shall presse, 
O ! bee its magicke not confined,, 

And let this sacred hoope noe lesse 
Have force thie faithfull hart to binde. 

Nor though the serpent's forme it beare, 
Embleme mie fond conceipt to sute, 

Dred thou a foe in ambushe theare 
To tempt thee to forbidden frute. 

The frute that Hymen in our reche 

By Heven's first commaund hath placed, 

Holy love, without a breche 

Of anie law maie pluck and taste : 

Repeted taste — and yett the joye 
Of such a taste will neaver cloie, 
So that oure appetits wee bringe 
Withinn the cumpass of this ringe. 



A LETTER INSCRIBED " TO MISTRESS JUDITH HATHE- 
WAY, WITH MIE HARTIE COMMENDATIONS." 



GOOD COZEN JUDITH, 

I am out of necessitie to enact the part 
of secretaire to my wife, or shee would have payd 
her owne dett ; for in trying to save a little robin 
from the tiger jawe of puss, her foote slipped, 
and her righte waiste therebie putt out of joynte, 
which hath bin soe paynfull as to bring on a 
feaver, and has left her dellicat frame verie weake 
and feeble, wherefore I have takin her a countrre 
loging, in a howse adjoyning the paddock of Sir 
Waulter Rawleigh, at Iselinton, where that great 
man shut in, often regales himself with a pipe of 



191 

his new plant called tibacca, in a morning, whilst 
the whole world is too narrowe for his thought, 
whiche I hear helpeth it muclie, and may be said 
for a trueth to enable him to drawe light from 
smoke. In an evnyng he sumtymes condesends 
to fumigate my rurale arboure w r ithe it, and be- 
tweene evric blast makes newe discovries, and 
contrives newe settelmentes in mie lyttle globe. 
Mie Romeo and Juliett, partlie a child of yours, 
for in its cradle you had the fondlyng of it, is 
nowe oute of leding strynges, and newlie launched 
into the world, and will shortlie kiss your faire 
hand. I think mie Nurse must remynd you of 
ould Debborah, at Charlecot ; I owne shee was 
mie moddel; and in mie Apotticary you will dis- 
cover ould Gastrell, neere the churche at Stratford ; 
but to make amencles for borrowing him for mie 
scene, I have got him sevrall preserved serpents, 
stuffed byrds, and other rare foraign productions, 
from the late circumnavigators. 

Thankes for the brawne, which younge Ben, 
who suppd last nighte with us, commended hugelie, 
liis stomach prooving he did not flater, and drank 
the helth of the provyder in a cupp of strong 
Stratford. 

You are a good soule for moistning mie mul- 
berrie-trce this scorching wether, the which you 
maye remembre that I planted when last with you, 
rather too late, after the cuckow had sung on 
Anna's birth-daie, and I liope you maie live to 
gether benies from it, but not con tine w unweddid 
till then. 



192 

Have you gott my littel sonnett on planting it? 
for if you have not, it is lost, like a thousand 
other scraps of mie pen. And soe poor Burton, 
my ould schoolmaster, is gone to that " bourne 
from which noe traviller returns :" I fancy I still 
see him, when every Munday morning, as was 
constantlie his custome, he gave a newe pointe to 
his sprygges of byrch, growen blunted in the ser- 
vice of the forgone week ; a practise felt throw 
the whole schoole, from top to bottome 

You maie soone look to hear from your crippled 

kinswoman, whose limm is muche restored by Sir 

Christopher Hatton's poultise ; soe fare ye well, 

and lett us live in your remembraunce, as you as- 

suredlie doe in that of your sinceare and lovyng 

Cozen, 

William Shakspere. 

From my Loginge at Iselinton, 

June l%mo, 155 . . . 



Stourton, November 9, I807, 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

The rosy-fingered morn opened my cur- 
tains, and presented me with a view illumined with 
sunshine, the snow that fell yesterday evening- 
having been washed away by showers in the night, 
which had likewise mollified the air, and restored 
a parting farewell of summer. At this season of 



193 

the year I never opened my eyes on a more lovely 
or enchanting scene ; for, to say nothing of the 
autumnal tints the remaining foliage wore, so 
abundantly scattered are the laurels and other 
evergreens over the grounds of Stourhead, that 
the withering hand of winter can scarcely be seen 
or felt. Wishing to avail ourselves of this o-leam 
of sunshine, contrary to our usual habits, being 
both of us great loungers at breakfast, we hurried 
over that repast, having laid our plan so as to visit 
the remaining part of the house, agreeably to ap- 
pointment with the housekeeper, who shows it 
during her master's absence, this morning, and 
afterwards some of the home scenes of this 
charming place, which to see it as it deserves re- 
quires at least four or five days, and therefore we 
were resolved not to put ourselves under any restraint 
as to time. We walked up from the inn of the 
village, and entering the turretted gateway at the 
western lodge, we pursued the same approach to 
the house that we had taken before. On entering, 
we were soon attended by the gentlewoman who 
shows it, and were admitted into that part of the 
mansion appropriated to the family, to study, and 
to domestic comforts. The first room you enter 
is a drawing-room, of the same dimensions with 
that containing the cabinet, having a similar re* 
cess, filled with an organ. It is hung round with 
very fine paintings, but of an inferior order to 
those in the other wing; a door opens from it to 
a comfortably proportioned apartment, the usual 
dining-parlour, the space for the sideboard being 



194 

separated by columns. It is hung with highly- 
finished pictures in crayons ; and within this, two 
smaller but elegant rooms, occupied by young Mr. 
Iioare ; the one as a library, and the other as a 
music-room : over the chimney-piece of the first 
there is a very fine painting of the young gentle- 
man when a child, playing, by Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, in high preservation, and of which I think 
there has been a print. Another door from the 
drawing-room we left, opens to an antechamber 
connecting it with the library, a most magnificent 
room, and suitably furnished with chairs, tables, 
and carpet, a Fantique, of the most classical pat^ 
tern, having one end lighted by three noble win- 
dows, opening to a retired lawn, where you see 
pheasants and hares sporting together as familiarly 
as if they were domesticated. Over the lower 
tier of windows, and filling ail the semicircular 
space above, is a grand display of painted glass, 
with figures as large as life, representing the school 
of Athens, and executed by Mr. Egginton, of 
Birmingham. The celebrated design from which 
it is taken was painted in fresco, by Raphael d' 
Urbino, on the wall of the Vatican palace at 
Rome ; and for composition and masterly execu- 
tion has ever been esteemed one of the finest pro- 
ductions of that great master's pencil. The right 
angle represents a groupe of an aged man showing 
certain: mathematical figures on a tablet, and ex- 
plaining them to four young men, who are attend- 
ing to him with the strongest signs of admiration. 
Bramante, the architect, is here portrayed in the 
character of Archimedes, and the hindmost figure 



195 

leaning over him is meant for Frederic Gonzago, 
Duke of Mantua. 

In the centre compartment are the characters 
of the following philosophers, viz. Pythagoras, 
Epictetus, Empedocles, and Terpander. The most 
conspicuous of these is Pythagoras, who is en- 
gaged with great eagerness in writing. Empedo- 
cles, looking over his book, and apparently taking 
notes from it; Terpander; and behind him the 
graceful figure in white of Francesco Maria della 
Eovere, Duke of Urbino, form the pyramid of this 
groupe. 

On the other side, absorbed in contemplation, 
is Epictetus ; near the pedestal, and behind the 
head of Empedocles, is the beautiful profile of 
Aspasia. The other characters in this fine groupe 
are unknown. 

In the left angle is the figure of the cynic Dio- 
genes ; and in the back ground is the head of Ra- 
phael and his master, Pietro Perugino. On the 
whole, nothing can be more highly appropriate to 
the situation it here occupies, than the form and 
subject of the painting. The collection of books 
is extensive, and systematically arranged, undei 
the heads of " Auctores Classici ;" " Antiquitates, 
Inscriptions, Numismata ;" " Foreign History ;" 
and il British Topography." The collection both 
of Italian and British topography is one of the 
completcst in England. The chimney-piece, oY 
white statuary marble, is a choice specimen of the 
powers of the chisel ; and the figures of the 
Muses in the centre compartment of it are of the 

o 2 



\96 

most delicate ..workmanship. Over the fire-place is 
the fine portrait of Pietro Lando, Doge of Venice, in 
the year 1545, by Titian ; and on each side of it a 
series of most beautiful drawings, of buildings, pa- 
geants, and processions at Venice, by Canalettr, 
The antechamber contains miscellaneous publica- 
tions, and books of more general reference. 1 
was informed (but this is a shocking anti-climax), 
that the basement-story, for its character, as in- 
volving every comfort and convenience, is as well 
worth seeing as any part of the house ; and that 
the Baronet's cellars are a model of perfection in 
that way, and are copiously furnished with the 
richest produce of the grape* 

Leaving the house, I fall into a walk leading 
towards the obelisk, which passed, I enter, through 
a gate, on a grassy terrace of the most velvety 
sward I ever trod, extending for some miles, fol- 
lowing the summit of a hill that bounds the vales 
which form the so much admired pleasure-grounds 
of Stourhead. The surface of this noble terrace 
is as level and fine as if it was mowed, from beings 
kept constantly fed by a large flock of South-down 
sheep wandering over it; and so clean, that it will 
not soil a lady's silk shoe ; in short, for a delight- 
ful promenade and ride in a carriage, or on horse- 
back, I may venture to say there is nothing to 
rival it in the kingdom. Its course is an easy 
sweep, which in point of breadth expands and 
contracts in different reaches. At the end of this 
sweeping line, at a point where it takes a sharper 
turn, stands Alfred's Tower, a triangular build- 



197 

ing, erected by Henry Hoare, Esq. grandfather 
of the present Baronet, to commemorate the spot 
where it is supposed that Alfred, after he had long 
continued under a cloud, broke out and erected 
his standard successfully against the Danes; 
and therefore to this day called King's Settlehill, 
in token of that event. It is built of brick, one 
hundred and sixty feet' high, and from its top, 
which we ascended to, commands one of the most 
extensive views, perhaps, in England : we saw 
Glastonbury Tor, and into Wales, distinctly. In a 
Gothic niche, over the door, is a statue of Alfred, 
and under it this inscription ; 

Alfred the Great, 

A. D. 8?0, on this Summit 

Erected his Standard 

Against Danish Invaders. 

To him we owe the Origin of Juries, 

The Establishment of a Militia, 

The Creation of a Naval Force. 

.Alfred, the Light of a benighted Age, 

Was a Philosopher and a Christian, 

The Father of his People, 

The Founder of the English 

Monarchy and Liberty. 

The character of Alfred I have ever contem- 
plated with admiration and astonishment. Tq 
think that in a short life, subject to hourly pain, 
harassed by formidable foes, and in the twilight 
of learning, he should have acquued so much 
knowledge, and carried into execution so many pa- 
triotic plans, would almost exceed credibility, 

o 3 



198 

unless so indubitably attested. At approaching 
this illustrious monument, I felt an awful venera- 
tion, little short of sacred, and Jones, whose 

" Eye I saw in a fine frenzy rolling/' 
gave vent to his raptures in the following 

IMPROMPTU. 

Whoe'er thou art who dar'st approach this pile, 

And feelest not thy bosom all on flame, 
Boast as thou wilt alliance with this isle, 

Renounce thy title to a Briton's name i 
For 't is to him whose image meets thine eye, 

The Christian hero, Alfred, that we owe 
Freedom and right, than which beneath the sky 

Heaven has not richer blessings to bestow. 
Hoahe thankful felt th' enthusiast patriot's fire, 

This sacred spot with awful reverence trod, 
And bade the votive fabric to aspire, 

An off 'ring to his country and his God :*— 
For when the trophy to ihe man wajs rais'd, 
Twas Heaven, who lent him, in the end was prais'd. 

The terrace, that here takes, an abrupt bend tft 
the left, still continues in its dressed state for 
some distance farther on, though not so broad, 
but confined more like an avenue ; yet I hear that 
the possessor of this line place, whose taste and 
spirit keep pace with each other, has it in con- 
templation to extend his ride in continuation of 
the terrace, over the summit of his boundary hills, 
for its whole length, so as to take in a circuit of 
nine or ten miles. 

So much time had been taken up in our visit to 



199 

the house in the morning, and so delighted we 
■were to saunter where there was so much bcauty 
to admire, in our way to, and round and up Al- 
fred's Tower, that we agreed to abridge our walk, 
as the shades of evening were advancing, and 
make for our inn the nearest road. Wherefore, 
retracing our steps so far, we turned down the 
vale in which the Stour rises, from its six foun- 
tains ; and not wishing to forestall the pleasure of 
examining the lower and most interesting part of 
that vale, where are concentrated the greatest at- 
tractions that the grounds of Stourhead can boast 
of, we turned up an oblique path, that brought us 
again out at the obelisk. Our dinner was well 
dressed, as usual, and our rambles had begot us 
an appetite that was not disposed to quarrel with 
the cook, and fitted us for enjoying our bottle of 
port by the Radstock blaze. Our conversation, 
as you may well suppose, chiefly turned on what 
we had seen ; books, pictures, and painters, 
claimed a share ; but Alfred's life we discussed cri- 
tically and minutely, in doing which Jones la- 
mented much that there was no translation of the 
Saxon Chronicle into Engljsh, with, copious notes, 
and that the old Saxon language was not more 
studied; by the help of that well understood, 
he said, numerous errors would be corrected, and 
contradictions reconciled in our history; we 
should draw our information purer from the spring 
itself, than from the polluted streams at a dis- 
tance from the source. He said he hudalwa\> 
been puzzled to account for the Stour ton ann>. 

o 4 



200 

till he had heard, since his visit to this country, 
what was its origin ; he was therefore highly gra- 
tified by seeing the spot that bears in nature what 
the Stourton family have represented on their es- 
cutcheon ; and this was a bearing very character- 
istic of their great command, and particularly of 
their rights in the fishery of the Stour, co-exten- 
sive with its run : this was literally tracing their 
consequence to its source ; few armorial cogni- 
zances have as much meaning as this, when once 
explained. He questioned if the Stourton crest 
was not a pun, being a demi monk, and might have 
been assumed on a marriage of one of the Stour- 
tons with a Le Moine, by which their posses- 
sions were much increased* and the lady be- 
came half a monk only, her better half being 
then a Stourton. Jones having picked up this 
morning a rare plant he had been long in 
search of, is impatient to lay it out, by a pro- 
cess he makes use of, that though dried it will 
never appear shrivelled ; so while the botanist 
is busy in his hortus siccus, I will send you ano- 
ther extract from my Shakespeare's unfading gar- 
land, viz. a few items from his journal, and a 
sample of his own Memoirs by himself. Adieu, 
and believe me 

Yours, &c. \ 



lOmo April 1595. Neere noondaye, and but 
juste stirringe, haveing* tasted noe sleepe till after 



201 

sunrise, mie ehamhere and bedde havcing Been 
greevouslie infested with fleas, which never wcare 
remembred to sw-arme soe abundantlie before, the 
whole kingdome over. Sandie countreyes more 
overrunne with this little bloode sucking varinin 
then others, which was confenned by that which 
mie noble and trulie liberall patrone mie Lorde of 
Southamton, related yesterdaye morning of manie 
people within this moneth dying of a flea feaver 
neere the Erie of Kent's, att a smale vy liege 
called Syiveshoe, beeing a soyle composed of 
sande. 

Mie Lorde honored mee by callinge agen to- 
daye, and returned me mye tragedie of Richarde 
III. which he was pleased to speake of in straynei 
of high prayse; not that I have haulf fynished 
mie crooke-backed tirante. Flea-bitten was wonte 
to be a terme of lowe reproche, but it can be no 
longer accomted soe, for mie Lord of Southamton 
com play ned noe lesse than me of the plague of 
the past nighte; and I noted his linen, that it 
must goe with noe richer blazonrie then his poore 
fellowe-sufYrers to the bucking ; and the flea, this 
Jitle chartered lybertine, as impudentlie runs his 
capers in the Qeen's Majestie's ruffe, as Mistress 
Shakspere's. 

£5mo Sept. 1590. The honorable goode ladie 
the Countesse of Pembrok hath condescended to 
Tequeste that I would sitt for mie pictore to a fo- 
rainer, one Signior Succaro, who loges at the back 



202 

of Ely Pallace. Her Majestie I have scene painted 
by him, withe my Lord Southamton, and it is a 
trulie rare creacion. 



Out of Shakespeare's own Memoirs, by Himself. 

Having an ernest desier to lerne forrain© 
tonges, it was mie goode happ to have in mie 
fathered howse an Ittalian, one Girolamo Albergi, 
tho he went bye the name of Francesco Manzini, 
a dier of woole ; but he was not what he wished 
to passe for ; he had the breedinge of a gen til - 
man, and was a righte sounde scholer. It was 
he tough t me the littel Italian I know, and rubbid 
up my Lattin ; we redd Bandello's Novells toge- 
ther, from the which I getherid some delliceous 
flowres to stick in mie dramattick poseys. He 
was nevew to BattistoTibaldi, who made a transla- 
cion of the Greek poete, Homar, into Ittalian, he 
showed me a coppy of it givin him by hys kins- 
man, ErcoloTibaldi. 

He tould me his uncle's witt was nearer so 
brylliaunt, and he neaver compoasid soe well as 
when he was officiating att the shryne of one of 
the foulest of all the Roman dieties, and had left 
a large vollume of reflexiones whilst emploied after 
this sorte, intituled, Pensieri digeriti. 

Altho he trusted me with muche, yet he smo- 
thered some secrettes whoose blazin was not to be 
to eares of fleshe and blond, that dyed withe him. 



203 

His whole storie known meethinkes would have 
bin a riche tyssew for the Muses. By an Itallian 
stansa tyed rownd withe a knott of awborn hayer 
found hanging att hys brest, hys misfortun, and 
thatt mysterie he studyed to throwe over it, was 
oweing to an erlie passione for a fayer mayden at 
Mantua, whiche urgid him to kill his rivalle in a 
duell. 

His knolege of dying woolle was nott that he 
was broughte upp to the trade, butt from his 
being deepe in all kindes of alkymy, wherewith 
he was wont to say he could produse gould owt 
of baser metalles, butt he would not increse the 
miseryes of mankyncl What would yong Benn 
have gy ven to have knowne hym ? 



Stourton, November 10, 1807. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

A short summer has again commenced, 
which, as you may imagine, contributes greatly 
to the fascination of this enchanting place, though 
in all weathers it has its charms; for in every 
thing we see here, there is such a happy union of 
elegance and comfort, such a provision against 
the season, that leaves most fine places for five 
months dreary and cheerless, as little of nature as 
possible sacrificed to ostentation, and such an air 
of tranquillity over the whole, and so many happy 



204 

human faces occurring every where, arid even the 
unreclaimed tenants of the wild mixing in your 
path, fearless and tame, as in Eden ere sin had 
entered ; there is no satiety, and you fancy your- 
self in a better world. We hurried our favourite 
repast, and so impatient was Jones for starting, 
that he would not spare three minutes to boil his 
second egg. Having settled our bill of fare for 
dinner, and given the necessary direction for the 
comforts of the evening, we sallied out with 
spirits unclouded as the sky, and as light as the at- 
mosphere then around us. We at first took the same 
road as on the preceding mornings, entering the 
turretted gateway, and falling into a walk on the left, 
that leads from the house to the gardens, through 
a grove of tall laurels, excluding all the landscape. 
Nearly at the end of this laurel-sheltered walk, a 
turn to the left brings you to a door that opens 
into the walled gardens occupying the side of a 
hill which faces the south, in a gradation of slopes. 
in the first range is the green-house, or conserva- 
tory, not overgrown, but well furnished with a 
choice assemblage of plants, including a large 
collection of heaths, arranged with great taste, 
and externally covered with the evergreen rose 
at that time in most luxuriant bloom. In the 
next are the hot-houses for grapes, peaches, nec- 
tarines, &c. seemingly in a most productive state. 
There are no pines. Having seen the gardens, we 
pursue a walk skirted on one side by some 
of the most picturesque veterans of the forest J 
and on the other by a beautiful lawn, lightly 



205 

lightly clotted with trees, into which the library 
opens, and over which, as I have already re- 
marked, you see every morning a hundred phea- 
sants, intermixed with hares, playing their gam- 
bols with a confidence and familiarity that is de- 
lightful. We then descend through a rich avenue 
of laurels overshaded by the most majestic forest 
trees of every sort and character, into the first 
vale. But in order to make my account intelli- 
gible, and for you to form a clearer estimate of 
the extent and variety of the grounds at S tour- 
head, you must know, that they comprise three 
rallies, nearly parallel, yet by most happy insinu- 
ations contracted and expanded so as to destroy any 
monotonous uniformity, and each of a character 
widely differing from the other. The first vale 
we now enter, as nearest the house, you may sup- 
pose, is more highly cultivated and decorated, 
more under the dominion of art, and more in full 
dress than the others ; for here chiefly are found 
the temples, grottos, and other adventitious orna- 
ments, yet all so happily disposed of, such elegant 
and classical models of art, or chaste imitations of 
nature, that no person of the smallest taste would 
wish them fewer. Every thing that partook of 
that fantastic order once too prevalent in the king- 
dom, and by which, I am told, this line place had 
been disfigured, such as pagodas, Chinese bridges, 
&c. have been long since swept away by the pre- 
sent gentleman, whose taste is too correct to ad- 
mit of such deformities existing. At the foot of 
the descent into this vale, a walk receives you 



206 

that takes nearly a straight course on the margin 
of the lake here covering the whole expanse of 
the vale. The water is most remarkably clear, 
and free from weeds, with its banks finely fringed 
with laurel, alder, and the most grotesque growth 
of every kind; and the hills on each side, richly 
clad with trees, fall with a gentle slope towards it, 
whilst its surface is enlivened by swans and abun- 
dance of wild fowls of various sorts, which 
through the season afford a regular supply for the 
table ; nor is the water below unpeopled, as it pro* 
duces carp, tench, and eels of an exquisite fla- 
vour, so that the Baronet's bill of fare never need 
lack fish, though those of the sea may not be pro* 
cured ; which I am told with him rarely happens, * 
so providently and methodically is every part of 
his establishment conducted. Out of this walk a 
turn of a few yards brings us to the ferry, where 
there is a boat in summer to waft passengers over, 
but is shut up in a boat-house in winter, so that 
we were obliged to prosecute our walk on that 
bide a considerable way, to enable us to get over 
by land, and connect us with the corresponding 
walk on the other side. This opposite walk, car- 
ried over a fine lawny projection from the woody 
hill above it, leads us into a covert of trees of 
the most wild and entangled appearance, and so 
intermixed as to conceal the lake, and the en- 
trance into the retreat buried beneath their dark 
shade, leaving imagination at work to picture 
what you are to encounter. In the midst of this 
matted umbrage a grotesque arch scarcely seen 



207 

till entered, admits you into a subterraneous grotto, 
where the eye loses sight of every thing but the 
interior, lighted faintly by an opening in its roof, 
and the ear hears nothing but the echo of your 
own steps, and the murmuring lapse of waters. 
The passage you enter at is rather narrow, but 
soon expands into a wide circular space, whose 
sides and roof represent as nearly as possible a 
natural cavern, and on whose floor various kinds 
of pebbles are so disposed of as to work a curious 
mosaic. In a recess on one side, recumbent on a 
couch of white marble, lies asleep a Naiad, of ex- 
quisite workmanship, with water from behind 
streaming in every direction over the figure, and 
falling into a basin below, on whose margin, com- 
posed of a white marble tablet, is inscribed Pope's 
translation of the following Latin lines by Cardinal 
Bern bo : 

Hujus Nympha loci, sacri custodia fontis 
Dormio, dum placidae sentio murmur aquae : 

Parce precor, quisquis tangis cava marmora, somnum, 
Rumpere, sive bibas, sive lavere, tace. 

Nymph of the grot, these sacred streams I keep, 
And to the murmur of the water sleep f 
Oh ! spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave. 
And drink in silence, or in silence lave. 

I agree with Jones, that lave is a weak, if not 
an improper word, and very unworthy Pope: a 
pitiful shift for the sake of rhyme : I believe Pope 
was the only person who ever used lave as a verb 
neuter, a property that Johnson very servilely 
allows it on the strength of this solitary instan 



£08 

Opposite to the narrow passage leading out of this 
part of the grotto, in a rocky caverned recess, 
another fine figure to represent the river deity of 
the Stour, in white marble, forcibly arrests the at- 
tention in the midst of the most transparent 
water, sitting on a rude fragment of rock,, pour- 
irjg the silver stream from his urn. The whole of 
this grotto, with its accompaniments, both within 
and without, is so appropriate, that it is impos- 
sible to visit it without feeling disposed to pay a 
just tribute to the fine taste of the designer. After 
emerging from this Egerian retreat, and revisiting 
the day, a beautiful path, under the noblest hang- 
ing woods, leads you by a picturesque Gothic 
cottage, covered with various sorts of creepers, 
woodbines, and clemates ; and a little farther on, 
by a fountain trickling from a rocky aperture, 
through moss~ intermingled with wild flowers, to 
a gently swelling elevation, just above the lake 
crowned with that superb building the Pantheon, 
the exact model of the building of that name at 
Rome. This noble edifice is a rotundo, thirty-six 
feet in diameter, lighted from the dome, and fur- 
nished with statues in niches all round it ; among 
which some of the principal are, an antique of 
Livia Augusta, in the character of Ceres ; a Flora ; 
and a Hercules, by Itysbrack, the chef-d'oeuvre of. 
his art. From the front of this building you have 
a most charming view, composed of an assem- 
blage of the chief beauties of the place : an am- 
phitheatre of rich wood, embosoming, on the oppo- 
site side of the lake, the beautiful temple of Flora, 



209 

whose portico you catch, the cross, the village 
and church, and the polished mirror of the lake 
(as it was, when we saw it, unruffled by a breath) 
reflecting the inverted landscape. After passing 
the Pantheon, and having nearly made the circuit 
of the lake, we came to and entered a grotesque 
rocky adit, conducting us by rude broken -steps 
over the archway leading from the village to the 
hermit's; cell. Nothing can be more characteristic 
of a hermicage than the profound seclusion of this 
spot, from which you cannot hear 

" The distant din the world can keep." 

Still ascending, we reach the temple of Apollo, 
or the Sun, after the model of that at Balbec, 
placed on the summit of the hill above the 
village. Ktere the view is very extensive, tak- 
ing in the whole of the gardens and grounds 
as far as Alfred's Tower, over the most, ma- 
jestic gradation of wood that can be imagined. 
In our ascent we went above the road, but in 
our descent we pass under the road through 
a subterraneous passage that brings us, by a 
walk through picturesque spruce firs, rendered 
more so by the circumstance of the leading 
shoot having been destroyed, and an irregular 
leader formed*, to the much celebrated cross, 

* In SJr. Richard Hoare's Tour through Ireland, page 313, 
you will find the mode made use of to produce this effect, 
strongly recommended, and most satisfactorily illustrated by a 
reference to the very trees here noticed. 



210 

so placed as to appear from the village, just 
without it, as a cross, that might originally 
have belonged to it; but this exquisitely fine- 
specimen of that species of building was* 
brought from Bristol, and formerly stood near the 
centre of the four principal streets when it was- 
first erected, in 1373, and afterwards adorned- 
with the statues of several of the English Kings, 
benefactors to that city, prior and subsequent to it^ 
erection, viz. King John, Henry III. Edward III. 
and Edward IV. In the year 1633 it was taken 
down, enlarged, and raised higher, when four 
other statues were added, Henry VI. Elizabeth, 
James I. and Charles I. It occupied its original 
site till the year 17 o3,. when, to give more room 
to the streets at their confluence, it w r as taken 
down and removed to St. Augustin Street, College 
Green, where it stood till it was finally taken 
down and sold to Mr. Hoare, who thought so 
highly of its merits as to be at the pains and ex- 
pense of bringing it stone by stone to Stourhead, 
notwithstanding the city of Bristol had disen- 
franchised this ancient member of their corpora- 
tion, and sent it packing with all its cargo of 
royalty, leaving on record a memorable instance 
of their taste, their gratitude, and their loyalty *. 
After minutely surveying this elegant Gothic 
relic, we turn to the left, and have an opportu- 

* Jones informs me that he had been told by a profound 
Welsh antiquary of a tradition existing in Pembrokeshire, that 
tins cross was removed from Tenby, where it first stood, to 
Bristol. 



211 

nity of contrasting it with a very different style 
of architecture in the Temple of Flora, whose 
portico only had caught our eye from the opposite 
side. It bears in front this inscription : " Procnl, 
O procul este prof anl" Near this place I was 
shown a fountain of the most translucent water I 
ever beheld, as well as of the finest taste, whence 
the drinking water of the house is supplied. In- 
deed, all the water here is very excellent, the soil 
that it passes through being sandy, acting as a 
filter. Here we closed our excursions for this day, 
and returned to our inn, where, after a most 
sumptuous mental feast, on the recollection of 
what we had seen, nature, that pander to the 
body, put in her claim for a dish of South-down 
mutton, to relish which nothing was wanting but 
the laver and the samphire of Milford. After our 
wine Jones treated me with some delicious music, 
having set up his flute for the first time since we 
have been here ; and feeling the inspiration of the 
muse, he has, in his usual rapid way, thrown off 
a song, set it to a favourite air, and sung it with 
great taste; and now, while, to atone for the insi- 
pidity of this letter (for I am very awkward at 
local description), I am preparing to copy another 
sample of my Shakespearian collection, the pro- 
duction of a lady bard, Anna llatheway, after- 
wards Mrs. Shakespeare (for she too, it seems', 
had tasted of Helicon); Jones has promised me a 
copy of his song, both which I shall inclose ; so 
adieu, and believe me 

Yours, At. 
p 2 



212 



TO HER OWNE LOVYNGE WILLIE SHAmSPERE, 

From mie throane in Willie's love, 
Whitest moare than roialle state I proove, 
Circledd proude withe mirtle crowne, 
I onn Englaunde's queene looke downe. 

And proude thie Anna welle maie bee, 
For queenes themselves mighte envie mee, 
Whoo scarse in pallacis cann flnde 
Mie Willie's fonre, withe Willie's mynde. 

By formes forbidd to telle theire smarte, 
And of the canker ease the harte, 
Withe them, alas ! too ofte 't is seene 
The wooman sufferes for the queene. 

But, oh ! withe us, moare blest than thay, 
Heere happie nature hathe her swaye 5 
, Wee looke, we love, and, voyde of shame, 
As soone as kindledd owne the flame. 

Anna Hatheway. 
Bye Avone's syde. 

SONG. 

A truce to all this idle schooling I 
Preach musty precepts to the old ; 

For, whilst you counsel, youth is cooling, 
Then keep it till 't is fairly cold. 

To scare my steps from Pleasure's bowers, 
I value not what greybeards say; 

That aspics lurk beneath the flowers, 
That dang'rous syrens line the way r 

The ear that cautious prudence closes, 

The syren's incantation scorns ; 
Nor shall I fear to pluck the roses 

If virtue wait to sheath the thorns* 



«1S 



MY DEAR CHARLES, Stourton, November 13, I8O7. 

Atter another day devoted to the lovely 
grounds of Stourhead, and another proof of the 
excellence of our inn, I sit down to recount 
yesterday's adventures. After breakfast, in com- 
pany with our landlord, who undertook to be our 
Cicerone, we took the road leading under the gro- 
tesque archway, over .which we yesterday ascended 
to the hermitage and temple of the Sun, and 
turning to the right, followed a screen of laurels 
of the noblest growth I ever remember to have 
seen, till we came to a gate, which having passed, 
we kept to the left for the purpose of visiting 
the principal keeper's house, pleasantly situ- 
ated above a running water, and connected with 
the kennels, that are so disposed of on a declivity 
open to the south, as to admit of their being 
flooded, and so easily kept clean and wholesome. 
These were on each side of the house : one for the 
pointers, the autumn dogs; and the other for the 
spaniels, the winter dogs. The dwelling-house 
over the door has this inscription : Fenatoribus atq, 
amicis : and is decorated with prints representing 
the sports of the field, exhibiting within and 
without every thing that can render it pictu- 
resque, comfortable, and appropriate; a remark 
applicable to every thing appertaining to Stourhead, 
and that cannot fail to be made by all who see it. 
Hence by a gentle acclivity, under a beautifully 
wooded knoll, we take the path towards an ele- 
gant cottage fronting us, the residence of the cu- 
rate of the parish, than which no situation can b« 

r 3 



214 

conceived more delightful ; with its courts, its 
garden, its orchard, and all its little elegant ap- 
pendages facing the sun, and looking on a view 
that can never tire. You no sooner pass this cot- 
tage than a scene grand and interesting bursts 
upon you, consisting of a voluminous, and, seen at 
that distance, an apparently connected, expanse of 
woods, only of different heights, as the summits 
they cover are more or less elevated, and the inter- 
mediate breaks wider or narrower ; but in descrip- 
tion as well as prospect, the pen, in giving an idea 
of a general view, must foreshorten no less than 
the pencil, otherwise the writer would be as un- 
intelligible a& the draughtsman. In the centre of 
these rich inequalities rises a beautiful conical 
hill, having its sides clothed with pines of the 
most majestic character. Beyond and above 
these woods you catch the tower of Alfred, which 
of itself, were it unaccompanied by so many other 
striking objects, would give dignity to its situa- 
tion, had it been raised on the blasted heath. The 
road here gently falls into a vale, rendered very 
cheerful by several neat cottages, prettily sprin- 
kled over it. It for some time takes a 
straight direction, then, crossing the vale, winds 
round the base of the conical hill, under the awful 
shade of its pines, preparatory to your entering a 
most sequestered spot a little farther on, whence 
you suddenly fail on the convent, a building most 
judiciously placed, and constructed to produce 
the desired ef Feet. Here one of the keepers lives. 
The principal room is hung round with prints of 
the different religious habits, and some old paint- 



£15 

ings, said to have been brought from Glastonbury, 
In the windows is a great deal of ancient painted 
glass ; and in every part of its exterior as well as 
interior, the true monastic costume is preserved. 

To render the scene more sombre, the tree that 
here predominates is that species of fir which 
most truly harmonizes with it, whose branches 
feather down to the ground, and are so tiled as 
almost to exclude the light of day. Having strug- 
gled through this monastic gloom, and again felt 
the cheering influence of the sun, we meet with 
walks of a more cheerful character, taking various 
directions; and one of green turf, lightly over- 
arched with trees, and winding through an ex- 
panse of forest of every growth, and which must 
form one of the most delightful summer rides or 
walks imaginable. However, we took the more 
open and frequented road, gradually ascending 
through the upper part of this valley, till it loses 
itself in the terrace, which again brings us to 
Alfred's tower, that august monument to the 
greatest of men ; for which, in this our second 
visit to it, we felt our respect rather increased 
than lessened, especially when contrasted with 
that proud, ostentatious turret seen from it, that 
Unmeaningly crowns the summit of Fonthill. 
The prospect from the back of Alfred's tower, 
and immediately under it, looking over the vale 
of Bruton, is very rich, as we now saw it in all 
the splendour of a meridian sun. Hence by a 
lovelv, circuitous, and diversified route through 
open and woody grounds we come to the third 

p 4 



216 

valley, which, though not so dressed as th two 
former, displays uncommon charms in dishabille, 
and capable of being equally heightened and im- 
proved, unless it be 

" When unadorn'd adorn'd the most." 

The outermost hill that bounds it our host recom- 
mended us to cross, to explore a spot that of late 
many travellers who came to his house went to 
see ; since our initiation at Holnicote we had con- 
tracted the true antiquarian curiosity, and needed 
no great inducement to follow the directions of 
our Cicerone, who brought us to a common in- 
cluding several hundred acres, thickly covered 
with circular excavations of various depths and 
diameters, called Pen pits, adjoining the little 
church of Pen. The learned are divided in their 
conjectures as to their origin and use ; some suppos- 
ing them quarries, and others habitations. If quar- 
ries, this natural question results : What became of 
the stone? as there is no large city or town near, 
and certainly could not have been at the time they 
were worked, the whole country round being the 
great tract of Selwood Forest. Besides, can we 
suppose people so ignorant, even in the most sa- 
vage state, were they quarries, as to prefer a per- 
pendicular to a horizontal adit for drawing out 
the stones ? From our examination of them we 
don't hesitate to join those who contend for their 
having been the habitations of some of the earliest 
inhabitants ; for Jones has furnished me with a 
note from Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, 
that tends strongly to confirm this most general 



217 

opinion, proving from Ephorus, that the Cimme- 
rians were a people undoubtedly of the same stock 
With our Cymry, that is, primitive inhabitants 
dwelling in subterraneous habitations, called ar- 
gillas ; and it is a curious analogy in language, 
that argil in the British means a covert, or place 
covered over. At the bottom of several of those 
pits, querns have been found, stones that minis- 
tered to the primitive mode of triturating grain, 
before the invention of that complicated machine, 
a mill; and this, I think, is a strong presump- 
tion in favour of their having been habitations. 

Having ordered our dinner at half after four, our 
landlord be^o-ed leave to remind us of the time, 
which would only allow of our getting to the inn 
five minutes before our appointment with the cook ; 
so we hurried to return, with appetites grown 
keener by our long walk, in healthy pure air. A 
fine fire, as usual, awaited us, and preparations 
for dinner gave us no small pleasure. A piper, a 
fish of the gurnet species, and a fine beef-steak, 
removed by a pheasant, made up our bill of fare ; 
which gave relish to our bottle of port, the very 
best I ever tasted at an inn ; but at such an inn, 
so situated, I am surprised more people do not 
make parties to stay a day or two, instead of pay- 
ing hurrying visits, by which means they do not 
see half the beauties, or enjoy half the com- 
forts, of this place. In the evening we Mere 
too much fatigued for any thine but convcrsa- 
tion. Even botany on Jones's part, and the 
^Shakespearian manuscripts on mine, could not 
tempt us out of our arm-chairs. I took some 



21$ 

pains to reason Jones about his prejudices with 
regard to fetch-candles and ghosts, which I fear, 
notwithstanding his strong mind on all other 
subjects, are too inveterate to be overcome. I 
tried him with reason ; I tried him with raillery — ■ 
but in vain ; and when I attempted to laugh him 
out of it, his country flew into his face, he asked 
me if I recollected what Johnson said, talking of 
ghosts, when in consequence of Miss Seward 
treating the subject with an incredulous smile, he 
with a solemn vehemence addressed her, " Yes, 
Madam, this is a question which after five thou- 
sand years is yet undecided ; a question whether 
in theology or philosophy, one of the most im- 
portant that ever can come before the human un- 
derstanding." After the discharge of this blun- 
derbuss I fired off no more of my popguns, but 
gave the discourse a new turn; I said I envied 
him his facility at writing short-hand, though I 
never could be brought to attempt learning it, 
from an idea that it would be more difficult to 
read it when written, than to write it at first. 
if Why," said he, " with my inquisitive mind, 
and but a bad memory, what should I have done 
without it ? you see by this means what treasures 
I have collected, and how little room they take ; 
I owe it all to short-hand : I was, like you, deter- 
red at first, but there are no real difficulties ; 
they are all ideal. Had I the memory of a grand- 
aunt of mine, I should hardly need the aid of 
such a science : I have a sermon written by her 
from recollection, after she came home from 



£19 

lurch, where she had been to hear the great 
'illotson, and I have had the curiosity to collate 
:hc manuscript with the same sermon afterwards 
printed, and the difference was very trifling; per- 
laps owing to some alteration it had undergone 
om the author himself, to fit it for the press." 
[e said he had been told by his father, who well knew 
oodtall, the printer of the Morning Chronicle, 
the first paper that professed to report the 
speeches of the House of Commons ; that he had 
seen him in the gallery of that house for three 
hours, with his cane-head to his mouth, never 
varying his posture, and never taking a note ; and 
yet the following day reporting the speeches 
without the loss of a single word, though, per- 
haps, he would call at the theatre in his way home 
to see a new farce, or a new performer, for his 
criticism ; and that his memory disposed of such 
various gleanings without the least confusion, or 
any apparent technical help. What an enviable 
talent ! From parliamentary reporters the transi- 
tion was easy to the House of Commons, the great 
assembly of the United Kingdom, squeezed into a 
room not half large enough to contain it; which, 
when full, must be suffocatingly oppressive : ill 
lighted, and un wholesomely heated, with every 
thing so dingy about its appearance; as if it was 
meant for the rendezvous of conspirators, and not 
of the patriots and legislators of the land. How 
much the want of a senatorial habit is tifo re felt ! 
not that it would absolutely confer on its wearer 
intellect, eloquence, or integrity, yet it must cer- 



220 

tainly contribute to give to the house in general 
that dignity at least to the eye, which it never 
can assume in its present motley character of 
dress. Is it not to be wondered at that the graces 
of oratory are so little studied, or so little dis- 
played, as in England, and that it does not con- 
stitute a more essential part of education; or, if 
it does, that the effect of it is rarely visible in the 
pulpit, at the bar, or in the senate? Great pains are 
taken to teach us to dance, that we may be better 
enabled to enter a room, make a bow, and play a 
thousand other monkey tricks ; but to adapt atti- 
tudes to speech, so as to give it greater powers of 
persuasion, has never yet been made a science. 
Indeed there has of late years a method been 
adopted at most schools of making boys spout 
parts of plays by way of introduction to oratory ; 
a most pernicious practice ; as, if it does not 
create in them (which I fear it too often does) a 
passion for the stage, and the vagabond life of a 
player, it gives them ever after a ranting, turgid, 
bombast manner of expression ; as distant from 
what I humbly conceive to be the true graces of 
eloquence as one pole from the other. We both 
agreed in rejoicing at the visible decline of private 
theatricals, a sort of mania that had at one time 
been universally prevalent ; which led to more 
expense and more mischief in the families who 
favoured them than any other entertainment : and 
ail for what?—- to see a play murdered : to say no- 
thing of the dangerous tendency it had to inflame 
the passions, and so corrupt the morals of the 



younger, and particularly the female, part of the 
dramatis personal. Thus over our tea, careless 
how far our colloquial wanderings led us, we pro- 
tracted the evening till the stroke of twelve re- 
minded us of the lapse of time and the dues of 
nature, which we hastened to discharge, there 
being few preparatory ceremonies to be attended to, 
as my companion had not his botanical apparatus 
to put by, or I my manuscripts, which I prize 
like the leaves of the Sibyl *. Breakfast waits, 
and so adieu ! 

P. S. I had almost forgot to tell you, that, 
chiefly owing to the light thrown on the Hiclfordd 
pedigree by what was communicated to me by the 
gentleman we casually met at Haverfordwest, and 
who afterwards joined us at Mil ford, I h ave 
nearly established my claim to the intestate's pro- 
perty, having just heard from thy uncle to that 
effect; and there is but one trilling point yet to 
be cleared up, and that I think I can easily do 
from documents I was so fortunate as to pick up 
at Minehead, from the papers of a great anti- 
quary there, whose ancestors for several genera- 
tions had been eminent attornies in that country, 
to whom I was directed, who, tacked on to an old 

* I say Silyl ; as Petit, a French physician, has endeavoured 
to prove, and not without strong arguments to support his as- 
sumption, that there never was but one Sibyl, and that her : 
was Heropliile ; that she was born at Erithncea, and died at 
Cuma 5 and that the diversity of names was occasioned by her 
travelling from one place to another. 



marriage-settlement of one of the Arundel r, about 
two hundred years ago, showed me a family chart 
involving the very link that was defective in the 
chain I had formed, and makes my title complete. 



Stourron, November 16, ISO/. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

Yesterday being Sunday we rested from 
our labours, contenting ourselves with a quiet re- 
capitulatory survey of the principal home scenes 
we had seen before, and a silent contemplation of 
the various beauties of nature and art, which for 
these last two or three days had engrossed our 
thoughts; after attending divine service at church, 
which afforded us a grateful opportunity of hearing 
it performed to a most respectable congregation 
with proper devotion by the inhabitant of the 
beautiful cottage I noticed in a former' letter, the 
curate of the parish, under the well-known literary 
character, Archdeacon Coxe, who is the rector, by 
the presentation of Sir Richard Hoare. The church 
is a neat Gothic building, but in point of archi- 
tecture, or monumental contents, it has no pecu- 
liar claim on the notice of the traveller or the an- 
tiquary ; but in a higher character, as the house 
of God, it is entitled to the praise and admiration 
of every one who, like us, may be so fortunate 
as to visit it on that day set apart for devotion, 
and may have an opportunity of witnessing the 

4 ' 



223 

proper manner in which it is kept, served, and 
attended, which will ever be the case while the 
head of the congregation sets so laudable an ex- 
ample of regularity in the discharge of his reli- 
gious duties. From repose such as we had not 
enjoyed for some time, procured by exercise less 
violent than usual, and minds tranquillized by the 
peaceful employments of the sabbath, we rose re- 
freshed, and prepared to encounter a fresh treat, 
that we were told we were likely to enjoy this day 
in our intended ramble. Though cold, it was 
bright and calm ; therefore hiring a couple of 
horses, we varied our amusement, and ascended 
the downs, where we rode in various directions 
for several miles, over the finest turf imaginable, 
breathing the purest air, and looking round us on 
a richly diversified country. Here the chalk hills 
end, and present, towards Stourhead, a most 
charmingly varied outline. Occupying an exten- 
sive and bold projection, we entered a large en- 
campment, strengthened by several lines of cir- 
cumvallation, in all probability Danish, as there 
is a covered way leading from it to a little valley 
on the left, called Swevn Cwnr, or, the Vale of 
Sweyn. The downs here are studded with nume- 
rous tumuli, of various forms and dimensions, 
most of which have been opened under the judi- 
cious eve of Sir Richard Hoare, the contents of 
which, now preserved in a museum at Heytes- 
bury, have proved highly interesting, being of 
different ages ; some clearly < •:' > remote anti- 
quity as the earliest population of the island, be- 



£24 

fore the use of metal, when flint and bone sup- 
plied its place ; and others of a later, wherein 
weapons of iron and a mixed metal are found, 
probably Danish. It seems the learned Baronet 
has in contemplation a most splendid work of the 
ancient history of Wilts, from records that cannot 
falsify, for ages locked up, but lately discovered 
by the application of the spade and the pick-axe, 
without the help of an ostentatious tantalizing 
folio index ; older it is true, yet more accessible^ 
often better preserved, and more intelligible than 
those in the Tower or the Augmentation Office, 
to get at which, though every British subject 
may of right claim to inspect them, I blush to 
say, that, even with the gold key in hand, one 
must frequently submit to more humiliating toil 
and encounter more dirt, than the barrow-pioneer 
in his subterraneous researches. This work, illus- 
trated from drawings of the various deposits 
found in the tumuli, is, I am told, in great for- 
wardness ; while to make it equal to its subject, 
lio expense is spared, and facts are more minutely 
and judiciously investigated than they have ever 
been before, either by Stukely or Douglas. 

After surveying with a sort of reverence those 
monuments of our ancestors, we left the downs, 
descending to Mere, a little straggling town, with 
a ridge of hills to the south, on which formerly 
stood a castle, the remains of which, for the sake 
of the stones for building, have been perfectly 
ransacked ; so that nothing remains but the bold, 

bxzj Ui 



225 

irregular site. The church is a respectable, digni- 
fied building. 

We wished much to have seen the Abbey at 
Fon thill, whose proud and lofty tower attracts 
the notice of the traveller ; but were told that no 
person was admitted unless the professed of the 
order, and particularly known to the abbot. 

Having much of the day yet undisposed of, we 
extended our ride through pleasant lanes and vil- 
lages to Silton, where we were told by the tree-en- 
thusiast we met at Bridgeware!*, there was a remark- 
able oak under which Judge Wyndham, in the 
time of Charles II. who in that village usually 
passed his vacation, used to sit and smoke his 
pipe. The situation of the place is charming ; 
most cheerful, and yet retired ; a retreat that 
must have been highly grateful to the venerable 
lawyer, after the din of courts, and being " in 
populous cities pent." The oak we visited with 
peculiar reverence. It was of immense size, but 
more striking from its picturesque form than its 
dimensions: perfectly hollow, with the greater 
part of its limbs decayed, showing on one side 
only symptoms of vegetable lite. 

Inquiring of the villagers, we found that this 
was the Judge's principal country residence, and 
were shown his mansion, now a farm-house, not 
far from his favourite tree, lie died on the cir- 
cuit, in his painful vocation, at a very advanced 
age, and was buried in the church of Silton, where 
we saw a beautiful monument in the chancel to 
commemorate him. His statue, erect in his robes, as 

Q 



QZ6 

large as life, is of white marble, and of exquisite 
workmanship. 

After a very interesting excursion we returned 
to our inn about four o'clock, and just above 
Stourton pass a large farmhouse called Bonhomme, 
which had of old times, as I was here told (though 
I suspect the information to be unfounded), some 
connexion with the only establishment of that 
order in England, at Iledington, in Wiltshire ; 
for Jones, who is a walking library, and knowing 
that we were to touch at Stourton, had, during 
our sojourn at Holnicote, copied out of old Leland 
the little that relates to this country, furnishes me 
with the following quotation, which is decisive of 
its origin : " There is on a hill, a little without 
Stourton, a grove, and yn it is a very praty place, 
caullyd Bonhomes, buildid of late by my Lorde 
of Stourton. Bonhome of Wiltshire, of the aun- 
cienter house of the Bonhomes there, is lord of 
it." There still exists a Romish chapel here, as in 
the neighbourhood are several of that persuasion, 
a remnant of the old dependants of the Lords 
Stourton. We again experienced all the comforts 
and independence of an inn evening, nor were the at- 
tractions of the table or the fireside inferior to those 
we acknowledged on former evenings. 

After dinner a packet of letters awaited me, 
and till the hour of repose I had them to digest 
and answer. Another letter from my uncle in- 
forms me, that all my Hwlfordd claims are allowed 
beyond the fear of any new opposition to them. 
I find the real property in Ireland is but small, 






227 

consisting of a few houses in the vilest part of 
your capital, near St. Patrick's, and one farm and 
a church-lease in the north of Ireland. The 
houses my uncle advises me as soon as possible to 
get rid of, being now more saleable than they will 
be a few years hence, as they have lately undergone 
thorough repair. The intestate being a specula- 
tive, sensible, observing man, seemed to foresee 
the commotion that took place a few years ago in 
your country, and wisely got rid of most of his 
little landed property, turning it all into money, 
to the amount of about ten thousand pounds, 
which, during his residence in North Wales, whi- 
ther he retired at the commencement of the 
troubles, through the medium of an eminent at- 
torney or two he formed an acquaintance with in 
that country, he vested in sound mortgages, now 
forming the bulk of the property. After meeting 
my uncle in London in the spring, I purpose vi- 
siting North Wales, as well on account of its pic- 
turesque beauties, as to examine my landed secu- 
rities ; so don't wonder yet if you find me turn 
hermit among the Snowdonian mountains. But 
by way of counterbalance to this favourable ac- 
count, calculated to raise my spirits, I hear from 
another quarter what has an equal tendency to 
depress them. Health grows every hour more and 
more a stranger to my Eliza; and weighed against 
her happiness, riches, fame, and honour, are but a 
feather in the scale. Charles, Charles, pity my 
weakness ! I have touched on the " string that 
makes most harmony or discord in me," and its 



£28 



vibration will not soon be over. Oh ! to forget 
her thrilling through my heart ! Adieu ! 



Stourton, November 14, 1807. 
MV DEAR CHAKLES, 

Here we still are, notwithstanding the 
unpleasantness of the season, fascinated by the 
superior charms of this lovely place, where the 
absence of summer is so happily supplied by 
groves of evergreens, that winter cannot be felt. 
Yesterday we partook of a treat, such as I 
had never been a guest at before. Hearing 
that it was in contemplation to open an im- 
mense tumulus with the popular name of Jack's 
Castle, in the vicinity of that memorable spot where- 
Alfred's Tower rises, which had been always con- 
sidered to have been a beacon, and probably might 
have been made use of for that purpose 
several hundred years after its first erection; 
I signified to the landlord, that if he thought 
there w r ould be no impropriety in it, I should be 
happy to be present at this ceremony. He said 
he was well assured that nothing could be more 
gratifying to Sir Richard Hoare than the presence 
of any gentleman actuated by such curiosity; 
adding, that he would, with our permission, as it 
were from himself, get our wishes made known. 
This produced a most polite invitation from the 
Baronet, and we hastened to obey the summons. 
The men employed to open those primitive sepul- 
chres, and who by almost constant experience are 






2*9 

deeply skilled in the operation, had been sent 
Nearly in the morning to prepare the work, which 
by twelve o'clock, when the company assembled, 
was in such a state of forwardness as to render 
every stroke of the pick-axe, and every motion 
of the shovel, highly critical and interesting, 
charcoal being perceived, the never-failing crite- 
rion of its having been sepulchral. On this 
symptom the gentleman who presided at this bu- 
siness, and under whose eye the solemn process 
was graduated, descended into the opening that 
had been made, and by some minute, and to us 
mystic observations, feeling as it were the pulse 
of the barrow, was justified in pronouncing that 
" the consummation devoutly to be wished" was 
at hand ; for no sooner had he pronounced this, 
than the cyst or factitious cavity, in which, in- 
stead of an urn, the ashes of the dead were depo- 
sited, was discovered, among which was found a 
stone hatchet, with a red blotch over part of it, 
as if it had been stained with blood, grown after 
a lapse of ages to look like red paint, time not 
having the power to efface it: this little weapon 
was highly finished. There was likewise a piece 
of a spear's head, of brass or mixed metal, the 
produce of countries more civilized, the effect of 
barter, for it hardly can be supposed that a 
people who had the means of fabricating such a 
weapon of metal would submit to the slow and 
tiresome process of resorting to stone and flint. 

The acquaintance we had formed did not end 
here. The Baronet gave us a polite and pressing 



230 

invitation to dinner, which, after detailing our ad- 
ventures in Somersetshire, and mentioning our 
letter of introduction from Mr. Fortescue, and 
our reason for not delivering it, we accepted. We 
sat down at half past five o'clock. The dinner 
was elegantly served, in one of the most magnifi- 
cent rooms I ever sat in, the saloon, which I have 
before described, and warmed by a fire that re- 
quired a forest to feed it. The wines were of the 
first quality, and the dessert excellent. The com- 
pany was not numerous, and the conversation such 
as might be expected at such a table, various and 
entertaining. You may well suppose that much 
of it turned upon the business of the morning, 
and other subjects of antiquity; for the greater 
part of the guests, if not professed antiquaries, 
were all amateurs, and had been convened for the 
purpose of being regularly initiated in the mys- 
teries of barrow-opening, in the course of which 
much ingenious disquisition took place, and the 
result of prior discoveries was communicated. In 
many of the tumuli great quantities of beads, of 
amber, jet, and an imperfect kind of vitrification, 
are found accompanying the ashes, and in almost 
every interment there is one pin found, having no 
head, and a triangular point, like a glover's 
needle, and sometimes small pieces of linen, as if 
the ashes were collected into a cloth, and held toge- 
ther by that single pin : Jones suggested that per- 
haps it was a web made of the linum asbestinum, 
a kind of fossil flax, found in the stone asbestos, 
of which they say there is a quarry in Anglesey 



231 

Which will bear fire, and of which Pliny, in his 
Natural History, says, the ancients made cloth to 
burn the hearts of their princes in, and preserve 
the ashes. There was a young man of fashion of 
the party, who, with a great deal of satirical wit, 
took much pains in endeavouring to turn into ridi- 
cule the pursuits of the antiquary, and particularly 
barrow-hunting, evidently not from any convic- 
tion that it was ridiculous, but merely to show 
his talents for raillery, of which he certainly pos- 
sessed a great share. Jones, who, I believe, 
thought him in earnest, and has too liberal a mind 
to permit him to despise studies that don't accord 
w T ith his own notions, offered himself a champion 
for the antiquary, and, having entered the lists, 
managed his weapons -well. Being on the sub- 
ject of antiquities, I mentioned our visit to Pen 
Pits, those excavations I already gave you a cur- 
sory account of, in hopes of having some light 
thrown on their history ; but I found that every 
thing that has been said of them is conjectural, 
as none of the topographical writers have ever 
noticed them, and there are as many different opi- 
nions almost as there are pits ; but the majority of 
the company present seemed to favour that of 
their having been habitations ; a young barrister, 
who was voluble and argumentative, would have 
them to be quarries ; but on being asked what be- 
came of the stones du^ from them, he was fairly 
gravelled : besides, as his principal opponent, a 
strenuous anti-quarry ist, observed, the pits seem to 
have stopped where the stone begins; for till j 

Q 4 



232 

go down to a certain depth, no stone can be found; 
and if stone was their object, they would hardly 
have finished where they ought to have begun. 

Our host finding our plan was to see Stone- 
henge and Salisbury, recommended us to take 
Heytesbury in our way, where the museum con- 
taining the relics that have been found in the 
different tumuli opened under the patronage of 
Sir Richard Hoare, is kept, and where Mr. Can- 
nington, the gentleman I referred to above as 
taking the lead in directing the operations of the 
morning, lives, to whose arrangement every thing 
is consigned. He was to set off for home the 
next day, and we engaged ourselves to take that 
road soon after him. Highly flattered and grati- 
fied by the entertainment we had enjoyed, we re- 
turned to our inn by ten o'clock, and, without 
trespassing on the hours of rest, had sufficient 
time to give you the journal of the day, and by 
the help of Jones, who is at another table copyingout 
of my late purchased manuscript another sample of 
its contents in verse and prose, to inclose you a little 
poem by Anna Hatheway, which Jones speaks in 
raptures of; and a curious letter from Shakespeare, 
to one of his early intimates in his native town. 
Adieu, and believe me, my dear Hibernian, 

Ever yours, &c. 



TO THE BELOVYD OF THE MUSES AND M£J 

Sweete swanne of Avon, thou whoose art * 
Can mould at will the human hart, 
Can drawe from all who reade or heare, 
The unresisted smile and teare : 

By thee a vyllege maiden found, 
No eare had I for mesured sounde ; 
To dresse the fleese that Willie wrought 
Was all I knewe, was all I sauglit. 

At thie softe lure too quicke I flewe, 
Enamored of thie songe I grewe - } 
The distaffe soone was layd aside, 
And all mie woork thie stray nes supply '& 

Thou gavest at first th' inchanting quill, 
And everie kiss convay'd thie skill j 
Unfelt, ye maides, ye cannot tell 
The wondrouse force of suche a spell. 

Nor marvell if thie breath transfuse 
A charme repleate with everie muse; 
They cluster rounde thie lippes, and thyne 
Distill theire sweetes improv'd on myne. 

Anna Ha the way. 

* By this Sonnet, as well as several parts of Shakespeare's 
manuscript journal, and the memoirs of his life written by him- 
self, it appears that Shakespeare's dramatic genius had discovered 
itself very early, and that several scenes, afterwards, with slight 
variations, engrafted into his best plays, were exhibited at seasons 
of festival by him and his companions j and he was fortunate 
enough to have two or three friends in his native town of nearly 
his own age, with congenial talents, particularly the very person 
who wrote Titus Andronicus, which Shakespeare only revised 
and fathered ; and two others, of the names of Benson and 
Cloptoji. 



234 






TO MASTER WILLIAM BENSON, MY MUCH ESTEEMED 
FREND/ ANT) THE DARLYNGE OF THE MUSES, 

These from mie harte. 
It rejoyceth me muche tolicere that you re 
broaken legg is agen knytted together, and that it 
beginnes to looke and dyschaurge its office now as 
well as the othere. During youre paynfull con- 
finemente with it, when it was dowtful how it 
would end, I seriowsly felt for you, and for the 
woorld, which in that shorte vacation from youre 
labors hath had a loss ; and had not Heven pre- 
sevid you to us, wold in youre deth have had such 
a loss that could not be repayred, with sok manie 
misterys of art shut up in the cabbinett of youre 
braine, that must have peryshed with you. 

Of youre unyversall alfabett I have allwaies 
spoaken to such as have mynd enow to grasp the 
plann, as well as of that cureouse macheene for 
writing twoo letters at once, which was in it's 
nursy's armes when I sawe you last, but now ar- 
ry ved at maturitie. 

Richarde Sadleir, who you maie remembere our 
puny littel schoole-fellowe, and who sayes he shall 
neaver forge tt your savyng hym from Dick the tan- 
ner his mastiffe, hath promysed, and hys promyse 
is anoather woorde for purformaunce, to get his fa- 
there, Sir Ralph, to interest the Queene's Majes- 
tie in your behaulfe, and bryng your rare tallentes 
to her knolege ; and the vennerable knight boastes 
of haveing more of the eare of hys mystress then 



235 

anie other of her courtiers, as he knoweth better 
than most of them how to humore her. 

I was yesterdaie honored by a visite from my 
Lorde of Cork, to whooni I spoake in the warmest 
tearmes of your ingeniouse conceiptes in all kindes 
of mechannisme, as well as sciencys. He asked 
me if I beleeved you woold not dislyke going 
oaver to Irlande, for he could sarve you theare, 
wheare laming and the artes are in a lowe state. 
He had a goodlie ould gentilman withe hym, h}-s 
father-in-lawe, Sir Geoffry Fen ton, reputed a grete 
jstatisman, and a persone hie in the Queene's favor ; 
he had travvyled muche over Europe, and so- 
jorned, when yong, long in Italy. Pie gave me 
the frame of a tragedie, from a lammentabil storye, 
that fell out when he was at Lucca, and showed 
me noe smalle skille in hys hintes for putting it 
togither. He sayd he had at tymes amusyd hym- 
selfe in making posies of the symple wild flowres 
growyng at the foote of Parnassus. He lamentid 
muche the mixteur of lowe ribbauldrie with some 
of mie most mooving sceanes. It was almost, he 
sayd, prophanacion. I owned it was soarelie 
against mie wille, but I kept a shop, and must 
have wares for all customers. Att the requeste of 
a ladie of honore, noe less a parsonage than the 
Countesse of Pembrok, I had dropped the grave 
sceane in mie Hamlett, butt the poppulece grew 
outragiouse, and threatted to bury us all unlesse 
theire favorit parte was restorid. He presented 
me wyth a choyce discoorse of his on love, printed 



at Padua, in goulden letters, and in soe smalle a 
forme as to go into the pocket of one's dublet. 

It was noe good pollicie in you to open soe 
much of your scheame of the universall carecter 
to that Frenche Papiste * who ould Gastrcll, the 
apoticary, had picked upp and harbouryd, for he 
has all the ayr of a treacherer. In future keep 
your harte more lockid, and give not the kay but 
to such as are woorthie of the truste; and of that 
number you iriavc safelie venture to rank your 
tried and faithful sarvitor, 

W. S. 



Warminster, November 15, I8O7. 
MT DEAR CHARLES, 

Longleat, the magnificent seat of the 
Marquis of Bath, having been pointed out to us 
as well worth visiting, and by way of foil, to set 
it off, the seat of the Duke of Somerset, which 
we must pass in our way thither, they both lying 
not far out of our direct course to Heytesbury; 
and Jones recollecting that he had an acquaint- 

* Jones recollects to have seen among his father's memoranda 
a reference to a curious letter, dated 1641, from Doctor Griffith 
Williams, a Welshman, then Bishop of Ossory, about being 
consulted by King Charles I. respecting an invention by an un- 
known Frenchman, born in Geneva, for an universal character j 
probably a descendant of the very Papist Shakespeare refers to, 
as having drawn the secret from his friend Benson. 



237 

ance in the vicinity of Warminster, where we 
proposed to fix our head-quarters for the night, to 
whom he had written to give us the meeting there; 
yesterday was devoted to this purpose; so leaving 
the beauties of Stourhead with regret, we pro- 
ceeded to Maiden Bradley, the present Duke of 
Somerset's principal country residence; an old 
house, of no size or pretensions for a nobleman 
of his high rank, and situated close by the road, 
in one of the most beggarly, sordid villages I 
ever passed through. 

Here one of the coheiresses of Manasseh Bissett 
endowed with all her patrimony an hospital for 
female lepers, being herself afflicted with that dis- 
ease, and the first patient ; and to this day the 
place looks as if the leprosy had cleaved to it, and 
was not to be cleansed. The hospital was annexed 
to a priory founded there before by her father, 
over which presided a prior, with secular priests, 
a sort of spiritual physicians, to cleanse the le- 
prosy of the soul, being entitled by the founder 
most equivocally, procuratores mulieram. Of one 
of the priors Jones, from his universal vade-mecum 
of oddities, has furnished me with a curious anec- 
dote he extracted from a manuscript in the Cot- 
tonian library, which referring to the prior of 
Maiden Bradley, says, " A none medler withe 
marrith women, but all withe madens the fairest 
could be gottyn. The pope considering his 
frailty e, gave him lycense to keep an hore, and 
hathe good writing (sub plumbo) to discharge his 
conscience/' Such indulgences were a great 



238 

source of the papal revenue. Jones says he has 
seen the original parchment, containing an annual 
absolution of Clement VI. and a printed book 
called the Custom-house of Sin, with a regular 
table of rates for all crimes annexed. 

The best and the only thing worthy of being 
mentioned as an appendage to a great man's 
house, was the park, not large, but well stocked, 
and, I am told, productive of good venison. 

About four miles beyond this wretched place 
we enter the grounds of Longleat, which appear 
very extensive, and well wooded ; the house, oc- 
cupying the site, most probably, of the priory, 
like all the ancient religious establishments, lies 
too low for health, on the margin of a fine piece 
of water, flooding the vale. The mansion is an 
immense pile (I only speak as to its exterior, for 
our time would not allow of our looking within, 
could admission have been obtained) ; the planta- 
tions near the house are most of them young and 
thriving, but have too great a proportion of Scotch 
fir, that harmonizes with nothing else, producing 
a most funereal effect. Here still are to be seen 
the venerable ancestors of that species of pine in 
England the Weymouth ; so called after the title 
of their first planter. 

The first Thynne who settled here is called 
servant to the Lord Protector Somerset; I pre- 
sume his confidential secretary ; but he seems in 
the choice of his residence to have had a much 
better taste than his master, who chose to abide 
among the lepers ; nor if we judge from the wide 



239 

range of his finely circumstanced property, was 
he less attentive to the quantity than the quality 
of his great master's donation ; for, taking the 
grounds of the present Longleat all together, there 
are very few finer places. In our way to War- 
minster, after emerging from the vale, we passed 
a new piece of water of great extent, which 
when the young plantations that surround it shall 
have arrived at a growth to make them orna- 
mental, will be a vast addition to the beauties of 
the grounds ; and by the time we had reached our 
inn, there was very little day left. 

Before we were fairly disengaged from our 
chaise, another drove up, and who should step out 
of it but our masked friends, whom we parted 
with at Pipers Inn ! They still preserved their 
disguise, accosted us with apparent satisfaction at 
this unexpected meeting, and mutual congratula- 
tions took place. They said they could not pass 
near that lovely place Stourhead, without tak- 
ing a look at it, though they had been in the 
habit of stopping there almost every year in the 
course of their excursions ; they talked of paving 
a visit to the Marquis of Bath, the Earl of Cork, 
and Orchardleigh ; a place that, if we had not 
seen' it, they thought would amply repay us for 
the deviation of a. few miles, as now involving 
great beauties, and capable of infinitely more, 
which the present possessor with great taste is 
daily calling out; yet the beauties of Orchard- 
Id gh have their alloy, in its proximity to the ma- 
nufacturing town of Frome, notorious for poachers, 



240' 

and principles ever at variance with aristocracy, 
by which it is perpetually infested. However, 
they should not start till the morning; and in 
that case they hoped we would have no objection 
to uniting parties for the remainder of the evening. 
We had neither of us dined, therefore agreed to 
order something that would be soon provided, 
which was done accordingly. 

We had scarcely sat down before Jones's ac- 
quaintance, the clergyman, made his appearance. 
He was a formal, shy man, and appeared to have 
mixed but little with the world, the living world; 
but we all soon discovered that he had conversed 
much with the learned dead, and that he was an 
excellent classical scholar, a character he had fre- 
quently occasion to display in the course of the 
evening. 

After dinner, having given orders to brighten 
our fire, over a fresh bottle, our Attic entertain- 
ment commenced, and our conversation was unin- 
terruptedly supplied with new topics, in the dis- 
cussion of which we all took our parts. Our cle- 
rical guest talked much of the geoponics of the 
ancients, and oftener cited Varro and Columella 
than Horace and Virgil ; he said the Roman and 
Greek writers de repustica were too little known; 
on which one of our masked acquaintance asked, 
if better known, would they be worth reading? 
a thing he much doubted : but the parson urged 
their curiosity as a recommendation. " That," 
replied Signor Parvidoglio, " would, I fear, be 
but a poor one: the curious in agriculture is a 



241 

-solecism ; to be valued, it must be useful unci prac- 
ticable ; there is no laying down general rules for 
agriculture ; they must be governed by climate 
and nature of the soil ; the treatment the Cam 
pagna of Rome requires would not suit the downs 
of Wiltshire. I am astonished," added he, " that 
Apicius de re culindrid has not been published, 
under the patronage of some professed Pic Nic 

Epicurt degrege, with notes by Sir W m C — $ 

and D — r P — rr, the latter of whom, when glutton- 
ously gormandizing, has had the grace to thank 
Heaven for such astonishing poxcers of enjoyment; 
and enriched with various readings by the B — - — ch 

of B ps ; the whole adapted to the meridian of 

the city, the taverns round St. James's, and the 
two universities ; as well as to rescue that noble 
science from the dull nostrums of Sir Kenelm 
Digbys Closet unlocked, or the greasy recipes of 
Hannah Glasse : the curious would be in character 
there, for the more we deviate in cookery from 
the natural and obvious mode, the more likely is 
it to be adopted; and in this age, so much under 
the influence of fashion, while hourly innovations 
take place in dress, in furniture, in manners, 
in houses, equipages; nay, in religion, law, and 
physic ; there have been fewer changes rung on 
cookery within these twenty years than on any 
thing else; but what an accession to the curious 
in literature and cutting of throats would Poly- 
'xnus's treatise on stratagems be, were Bonaparte, 

Sir S y S— th, or G c II r ; to favour 

us with a commentary !" 



242 

The parson finding that a page of Arthur Young 
would outweigh all his geoponical and georgical 
authors, with some degree of petulance, and as if 
he was still tingling from the critic lash, snarled 
out, " But it matters not what a man writes, 
whether curious or useful, if the currency of his 
work is to depend on the decision of a vena) Re- 
view, that happens not to be in the pay of the 
publisher of the work reviewed. I remember, in- 
deed, in a periodical paper, called the British 
Press, there was a review carried on most ably 
for some time, in which the hand of a master, 
and the mind" of an impartial judge, and (to use 
the phrase of the old report-books) of great cou- 
rage, were discernible. I was congratulating the 
nation on this auspicious epoch, when suddenly 
the critical department was put a stop to, and the 
learned conductor's services dispensed with, merely 
because he was so unfortunate in the discharge of 
his duty as a public censor, to speak what he 
thought (and he seemed always to speak correctly) 
of a dull yet favourite work published by the 
editor of the very paper which he had been auxi- 
liary to." — " I agree with you, Sir," observed 
Monsieur Shamnez, u that a most scandalous par- 
tiality, if not venality, is justly chargeable on 
our reviewers, and that no talents are a security 
against the daggers of those mercenary assassins, 
who stab in the dark. In one respect it would be 
ZXi improvement if the critics were to utter their 
censure with their real names ■ a plan that I was 
told the other day, a well-known veteran in the 



243 

ranks of literature had in contemplation ; yet it 
would be to be feared that in a Review of this kind 
few works would undergo its decision but such as 
had too much merit to be in any danger of being 
disapproved or condemned ; for where is the man 
who in that case would be bold enough to deer)- to 
the teeth of the popular applause the inconsist- 
encies of W r S — tt's muse, and avow with 

(he sanction of his real name that a schoolboy 
ought to be whipped for showing up as an exer- 
cise such bad lines as those which preface his 
cantos of M n, whether wc consider the sub- 
ject, the poetry, or the application? hat a pity 
it is that this literary assav is not lodged in the 
hands of such as would be above all temptation 
to abuse it; in the hands of men of rank, for- 
tune, and real learning ! it is a grand national ob- 
ject : under such censors the press would assume 
its proper dignity ; the taste, the morals, and the 
literature of the country would, could not fail to 
improve: and this," addressing himself to Jones 
and me, " seemed to be your opinion as well as 
ours when a similar remark was made during our 
meeting at Piper's Inn." — "Oh! that our nobi- 
lity and gentry," cried Jones, with his usual ani- 
mation, that brought the soul to his face, and tip- 
ped Ins tongue with fire, " would be actuated by 
sentiments worthy of their birth and character, 
worthy of men, that we might truly say, in every 
sense of the word, with the patriotic enthusiasm 
of Goldsmith, 

r 2 



244 



* I see the lords of human kind pass by :* 

but as things are, \v r e are certainly a reproach to 
our neighbours on the continent; we are not 
happy in any of our public institutions, neither in 
their principle nor their management; we begin 
where we ought to leave off; like reading He- 
brew, we begin at the end : Ave have, 't is true, 
institutions without end, from the gulls of animal 
magnetism and the strokers of metallic tractors, to 



the idolatry of a cow's ulcered udder; and as to 
hospitals, and other charitable endowments, they 
are innumerable; and I expect to see an asylum 
soon opened for orphan lap-dogs, and an infirmary 
for sick monkies. You see subscriptions for all 
denominations of establishments fill, and the 
names of such in the list, were it not for the os- 
tentation and publicity of the roll, as would not, 
if it was done by stealth, give a penny to pluck 
a dying man from a ditch, or keep a poor unfor- 
tunate family, with sensibilities above their condi- 
tion, who cannot beg, from starving. Is there a 
charity set on foot for expatriated emigrants, 
though chiefly spies, or as.^cssins in mask; un- 
emancipated Catholics, or excommunicated nuns — 
what is its origin and its progress ? Does it spring 
from the only source that can j stify its creation 
or ensure its permanency; from the silent and 
gradua) operation of pity, acting on the benevo- 
lent and the rich, to prompt them to consider the 
wants and distresses of their fellow-creatures, 
and for their relief to * cast the superflux to them, 



245 

c to show the Heavens more just ?' No such thing. 
Some deep, designing, specious projector, with an 
imposing plausibility,and apparent disinterestedness, 
yet with an eye, should the establishment succeed, 
to the housekeeper's, the secretary's, or the trea- 
surer's place, recommends the plan to some great 
man, whose ear he has gained by flattering ap- 
peals to his vanity and his pride, the only pass- 
ports to his favour and his purse. The train thus 
laid catches like wildfire, the avowed founder is 
puffed off in verse and prose, and the institution 
flames in the Red Book with all its blaze of presi- 
dent, vice-presidents, council, and subordinate 
officers ; but analyse the establishment and the 
founder, and will they bear it ? The former, too 
often the crude conception of prejudice and self- 
interest, adopted by whim or party, if reducible, 
never reduced to system, and furnishing sup- 
port for such as, for aught the contributors to its 
funds know, (so little inquiry is made into the 
merits of the objects it professes to relieve), may 
have deserved a cart's tail, or to pound hemp in 
Bridewell ; the latter, as most frequently has been 
the case, one of those Proteus characters with ta- 
lents unhappily to match his versatility and his 
artifice, who, after broaching a variety of strange 
doctrines from the school, the pulpit, and the lec- 
ture-room ; at one time a furious demagogue ; at 
another as loud for monarchy ; now a revolutionist 
abroad, and now a political incendiary at home : 
who, like an old courtezan, that, outliving all her 
charms and her passions, stiffens into prudery and 

R 3 



£46 

piety, never misses church, and is shocked at a 
double entendre; finding that he can neither sub- 
vert church or state, thinks it politic, by standing 
forth the champion of humanity, to patch up a 
tattered reputation, and smother principles which 
without being, fortunately for the world, com- 
bustible enough to blaze, betrayed themselves by 
the offensiveness of their smoke. Nay, I have 
got my doubts as to the utility of that charity 
called the Literary Fund, celebrated as it is by the 
elegant compositions of a Symmons or a Pye; for 
whom does it profess to benefit ? Decayed authors ; 
words of very vague and equivocal import. Is it 
always inquired whether the persons appearing 
under this title have been authors of genius and 
merit, who by their writings have promoted the 
cause of virtue; or, negatively good, have not as- 
sisted the cause of vice ? Have they considered 
that many who would wish on such an occasion 
to class themselves among authors, have, only to 
expose themselves, deserted the plough or the 
cobler's stall, and, from mistaking or misapplying 
their talents, have done an injury to society ? I 
have myself known some rewarded w ho rather de- 
served reproof; men certainly of talents, but who 
hid them under a bushel ; who having just tanta- 
lized the world with a specimen of what they 
could do, and not loving exertion, console them- 
selves with this reflection: I need not work, my 
name is up, and I have the Literary Fund to resort 
to." Apologizing for the interruption, Signor 
Parvidogiio, with much humour, wished to know 



247 

if decayed ballad-singers were within the embrace 
of that charity ; for on the same principle that it 
is said there would be no thieves if there were no 
receivers, if there were no ballad-singers there 
would be no ballad-makers; so far their relation to. 
authorship is established ; and as accessaries are 
liable to a participation of punishments, why not 
of rewards ? But Jones, with more spirit from 
this trifling rest, continued, " Would it not be 
more to the honour of this nation to raise a fund 
for assisting and fostering infant and growing ge- 
nius, to enable it to stretch its wings, and soar to 
the heights of literature, by being properly buoyed 
up, and preventing its falling a prey to the rapa- 
cious trade, as the booksellers are called; and, 
perhaps, for bread prostituting itself by writing 
novels and political pamphlets, to corrupt the 
morals or foment a faction ? There should be a 
committee to decide on works of merit, to appor- 
tion premiums, and give the imprimatur to such 
as were worthy of publication. It is much nobler 
to prevent distress than to relieve it. What an 
humiliating thing it is to think that genius should 
be obliged to become a beggar at an age when the 
faculties are impaired! — genius, that, if properly en- 
couraged at first, might have enabled the possessor 
to make a provision for age, after having by his 
talents contributed to the entertainment as well as 
the improvement of mankind." We were all 
unanimous in echoing back Jones's sentiments; 
and the parson, who had been on the move tor 
some time before, was ri vetted to hear him out 

K 4 



248 

who, with a rapture that I thought thequi^t elements 
he seemed composed of were not capable of feel- 
ing, exclaimed : " Ay, with genius so fostered, 
criticism under such control, and the harpy trade 
disarmed, the press would become a blessing, the 
treasures of ancient literature would be unlocked, 
^and even geoponics, perhaps, would be more 
duly appreciated :" then ordering his horse, and 
pinning up his coat, he w T as impatient to be going. 
We pressed him to stay, but he said his lantern 
was lighted (it being moonlight), and his presence 
at home was materially necessary in the morning 
early, as he was going to give orders about sinking 
a well on the plan recommended by his Greek 
geoponical friend, Diophanes. However, we made 
him promise to meet us the following evening at 
Deptford Inn, and to accompany us to Stone- 
henge. 

After the ceremony of parting with our clerical 
guest was over, and we had resumed our seats, 
Jones observed, " There is a man who has just 
left us, the most fortunate creature alive, possessed, 
one would think, of every ingredient of happi- 
ness, but who, not content, though he set out in life 
without any expectations, with having succeeded 
to an affluent independence, is a prey to imaginary 
wants and imaginary pretensions, and, conse- 
quently, to real miseries. He succeeded early in 
life to a valuable college living, which luckily 
brought him into the neighbourhood of a gentle- 
man, a quondam college acquaintance, a bachelor; 
who dying soon after, left him his whole fortune. 



249 

with a noble library, a fine collection of drawings 
And prints, and a curious cabinet of coins. These 
ne\v r possessions suddenly showered upon him, in- 
finitely exceeding his taste, his expenses, or his 
desires, became a source of new disquietude. His 
literature was too abstruse to be useful to the world 
or profitable to himself; and his independence 
only generated a sort of pride that aspired to at- 
tentions he had no claim on, and, from his re- 
cluse life, he had no chance of receiving ; yet the 
hermit, shrinking from observation, too modest 
to court notice, and too humble and primitive to 
figure away as a modern high churchman, thinks 
his lot hard to have been so overlooked, and that 
his temples have not felt the embrace of the 
mitire." The stroke of twelve now put us in mind 
of retiring, and we separated for the night. AVe 
rose early, and whilst I was winding up my 
journal, our masked friends, apologizing for their 
intrusion, stripped of noses, wigs, and all dis- 
guise, came to wish us a good morning, with the 
hope that some accident might again throw us 
into each other's company. Hearing I have half 
an hour yet to breakfast, Jones being gone with 
the landlord of the inn to see a botanist a little 
way out of the town, and to inquire for a rare 
plant whose habitat is mentioned in this neigh- 
bourhood, I shall copy out a little poem of Shake- 
speare's, which, if it pleases you half as much as 
it has done me, you will thank me for inclosing. 

Adieu. &c 



250 



TO THE PEERLESS*; ANNA, THE MAGNETTE OF MIF. 
AFFECTION NES. 

Nott that mie native fieldes I leve, 

Svvelles in myne eie the scauiding teare, 

Or bidcies with sighes raye bosom heave, 
* A wyse man's countrie 's everie wheare : 

Nott that I thus am rucjelye torne f 
Farre from the muses' haunte I love, 

With manlie mynde this might be borne, 

Else wheare the muse might friendlie proove : 

But, ah ! with thyne mie vitall thredde 

So close is twysted, that to parte 
Prom thee, or e'er the bridal bedde % 

Was scarselie tastid, breakes mie harte. 

Oh ! would the fatall syster's Steele 

Be streched to cutt her worke inn twayne, 

Wythelde whiche destynes me to feele 
That lyfe thus lenthen'd is butt payne. 



* In a letter from Milton to Peter Heimbach, as quoted in 
(hat valuable accession to the biography of this country, the Life 
of Milton, by Doctor Symmons, I remember an expression, 
echoed, as it were, from the great dramatist : 
<e Patria est, ubicunque est" 

\ This seems to have been written on his quitting the country 
in consequence of his juvenile adventure with a party of deer- 
steaiers, as the little poem which follows in the collection from 
Anna clearly settles. 

+ By this it appears that Shakespeare had but just been mar- 
ried when the deer-stealing frolic took place ; a circumstance to 
which, in all probability, we owe the noblest compositions of 
human genius. 



251 

But yett a wbyle her sheares be stayde, 

For dieing I woold fayne reclyne 
On Anna's brest, and theare be Jayde 

Wheare Anna's duste mote wedde withe myne. 



Deadfordlnn, November 1 7, 1807. 
JUT DEAR CHARLES, 

Breakfast over at Warminster, and 
Jones made as happy hy the acquisition of the 
plant he was in quest of as a barrow-opener can 
be in the discovery of a new relic, we lost no time 
to make for Heytesbury, no great distance off, and 
were no sooner alighted than we called to see the 
museum, containing the contents of the different 
tumuli that have been opened for these ten years, 
under the patronage of Sir Richard Hoare, and 
the direction of Mr. Cunnington, who has the care 
and the management of it. This gentleman, who 
has all the enthusiasm that is necessary to excite 
the mind to a pursuit of this sort, appeared to be 
highly gratified by our visit, as well as the zeal 
we expressed at the prospect of a new epoch in 
antiquarian literature, from the splendid work Sir 
Richard Hoare had in contemplation. Nothing 
could be more curious and systematic than the ar- 
rangement of the museum : the contents of every 
tumulus were separate, and the articles so disposed 
as in the case of ornaments, such as beads, in 
such elegant knots and festoons, as to please the 
eve which looks to nothing farther. The story of 



( s 



252 

several was so perfectly told by the relics they 
contained, that an epitaph could not have let us 
more into the light of the rank and character of 
the dead. In one drawer were displayed all the 
utensils employed to fabricate arrow-heads, other 
weapons and implements that required sharp 
points, there being various whetstones, of a coarse 
and a finer grit, with grooves in each, worn down 
by the use made of them ; together with bone in 
its wrought and unwrought state, evidently prov- 
ing it to have been the sepulchre of an artist, 
whose employ this was. In another we were 
shown some flint arrow-heads, very similar to 
those I saw at Milford, which had been dug out 
of a turbary in the island of Nantucket, which 
Mr. Cunnhigton accompanied with the history of 
the tumulus wherein they lay. About three feet 
from, the apex of the barrow, in digging they 
came to the skeleton of a dog, and from the fine- 
ness of the bones supposed to be of the grey- 
hound kind ; but when they got to the level of 
the surrounding ground (where, in general, the 
interment is found), in the centre, on the an- 
cient sward then apparent, they came to a heap 
of ashes, mixed with some few particles of bone, 
not perfectly calcined, as is always the case, and 
surrounded by a wreath of stag's horns. In the 
middle of the ashes were discovered the flint ar- 
row-heads, and a curious pebble of a reddish co- 
lour, not casual, but certainly placed there with 
design, as in that chalk country a pebble of such 
a character and quality is never seen, probably 



253 

some amulet. What a beautiful designation of the 
hunter's grave ! He told us they met with groups 
of tumuli sometimes of the prince or chieftain, 
and all his household, the prince's chiefly larger, 
but clearly characterized by the richness and sin- 
gularity of the ornaments and relics ; and many 
of the others as characteristic of the person whose 
ashes occupied them. They never find coin in 
any, which induces me to think that the greater 
part are prior to the era of mintage ; and seldom 
have found ornaments of gold. We saw a variety 
of urns from the height of two feet to one, not 
twice as big as a thimble. The urns that held the 
remains of the dead were all rude pottery, and 
half baked ; but tliere are found often accom- 
panying skeletons, a vessel they have given the 
name of drinking cup to ; I presume from a sup- 
position, that it was filled with some fluid, a viati- 
cum for the dead, as it is always near the head of 
the skeleton, with its mouth up, and empty. The 
pottery of these smaller urns is much thinner, 
better baked, and more ornamented. When Sir 
Richard Hoare opens tumuli, a week is generally 
set apart for the operations, and the Baronet, he 
told us, is generally attended by a party of his 
friends ; their head-quarters are sometimes at 
Amesbury, sometimes at Everlcy, sometimes at 
Woody eates Inn ; " and in such a company, gen- 
tlemen," said he, " you may well suppose the timo 
passes with much festivity and good humour: 
though they may not all of them be as sanguine 
barrow-hunters as the learned Baronet, yet they 






254 

are all amateurs in such a degree as to relish the 
pursuit, and enjoy it. From the collision of 
great talents much wit must be elicited ; there- 
fore our entertainments on such occasions cannot 
fail to be -well seasoned with it ; and, by way of 
confirmation, permit me to show you a little poem 
written at one of our parties by a gentleman who, 
in another part of the kingdom, is desirous, by a 
similar process on a smaller scale, of illustrating 
the antiquities of his country, and which, were I 
even justified in giving his name, would bring no 
discredit on his muse. To make the poem more 
intelligible," added he, " though I ought to blush 
Avhen I own it, as the writer, I fear, has strained 
his compliment, I am the absent member referred 
to, being then, to my no small mortification, dis- 
abled by illness from attending ; but the compli- 
ment with which the poem closes, applied as it is, 
will not admit of excess. But let the poetry speak 
for itself; and therefore permit me," said he, " to 
present you with a copy of it; the subject in it- 
self, though truly dignified, and thought so by 
the poet, is treated with so much characteristic 
pleasantry, as to induce those to read it who may 
have been in the habit of treating all the pursuits 
of the antiquary, particularly the opening of tu- 
muli, with indiscriminate ridicule, and stimulate 
such to digress a little from the high road of 
fashion, to examine the interesting deposit I have 
the honour of taking charge of, who, having 
seen it, may retire with a more just and favourable 
estimate of our labours, and acknowledge tha^t too 



£55 

much praise cannot be bestowed on the learned 
and liberal patron of them." I wish, Charles, you 
had been with us, as I am certain you would have 
found it a rich treat; we both allowed that we 
never passed a couple of hours more to our satis- 
faction. It was not only the things we saw, so 
totally new to us, that we were so much delighted 
with; Mr. Cunnington's illustrative account of the 
different articles displayed very considerable powers 
of mind, as well as originality, and was conveyed 
in a language and a manner peculiarly his own, 
and left us in admiration of acquirements so rarely 
met with in men of his rank and calling, who af- 
fected no other character than that of a respect- 
able tradesman. His knowledge was not confined 
to those primitive sepulchres whose contents he 
presided over, and mere antiquarianism. As a na- 
turalist he had some claim on notice, havin^inade 
large collections relating to mineralogy and fossils, 
and Jones allowed him more than superficial know- 
ledge in botany. On our acquainting him with 
our route by Stonehenge to Salisbury, he lamented 
much his not having it in his power to accom- 
pany us then to a spot which had occupied much 
of his thought, and which, often as he b lc! vi- 
:d it, he always saw with new d ■' lit; but on 
our saying that we meant to stop that night at 
Deadford Inn, he promised to attend us the follow* 
ing morning if we would permit him, and would 
call on us by ten o'clock, lie pressed us to take 
some refreshments, which we accepted, and after- 
wards stepped into the mail, then going by, there 



255 

being places, that passed the inn we were to lodge 
at. Our company in the mail for the few miles we 
had to go were, a boatswain of a man of war and his 
wife, who had been at Bristol to see some relations, 
and were returning to Plymouth. The tar was a 
man of a decent appearance, bore marks of his 
having served his country in the loss of an eye, and 
had no disposition to be taciturn ; so that, during 
our short ride, the glory of the navy of England 
proved an inexhaustible source of conversation- 
He talked much of Nelson ; he said, as to naval 
tactics, he was at sea what Bonaparte is by land : 
he settled an engagement as men would play at 
chess ; he knew the moves and the chances, as far 
as a mortal could know them, and Heaven had so 
gifted him, that he seldom moved or calculated, 
wrong. He was no less bold and decisive in the 
execution, than he was skilled in the forming of 
his plans. Who but he could have got us out of 
the scrape of Copenhagen ? it was neck or nothing. 
" I was in it all," cried he, " being on board 
Captain Foley's ship, as brave an officer as ever 
trod the quarter-deck ; and this Lord Nelson 
knew." One nautical anecdote followed another 
in rapid and uninterrupted succession till we were 
set down at Deadford Inn, where we found Jones's 
friend just alighted, not having yet unpinned the 
flaps of his coat. I call this place, meo pericttfo, 
Deadford, though usually spelt Deptford, being a 
village on the river Wily, the fords on which, 
from its slowness of current, particularly at this 
4 



257 

place, must have been of that character to entitle 
it to the epithet dead. 

While dinner was getting ready we had time 
to read the poem which Mr. Cunnington had pre- 
sented us with ; and Jones, who you know writes 
faster than any man I ever knew, and more legibly, 
undertook to copy it, that it might be inclosed to 
you, which I send, with all its notes, just as it 
was communicated to us. Our dinner over, and 
our wine and dessert of biscuits, apples, and wal- 
nuts being placed on a smaller table, we ap- 
proached the fire, and every thing around us seemed 
to wear an air of comfort, though it would not 
bear a comparison with that of Stcurton. Our 
guest said he had been so fortunate as to find the 
water he had sought for after the mode recom- 
mended by an ancient geoponic writer, Paxamus*; 
and as to his reservoir for collecting it, he fol- 
lowed Diophanes, the Bithynian. But in the pre- 
paration of his mead, great as his veneration was 
for his old Greek friends, he preferred Queen Eli- 
zabeth's receipt for making it, as communicated 
by old Fuller, who says, the Queen, by reason of 
her Tudor blood, was very partial to it, and so 
must every one be who should experience, as he 
had done, the good effects of it on the constitu- 
tion. Warner, who wrote on the gout, is of opi- 
nion, that if no other liquor than whey was drank 
as a common beverage, and mead as the only 
wine, it would entirely eradicate this excruciating 
disorder. He told us he had some fifteen years 
old, which to men of nice discriminating palates, 



<258 



and used to rich foreign wines, he had passed off 
as the produce of a Sicilian grape. He followed 
the ancients only in one species, called Rhodo- 
jnelites, which he brewed according to a prescrip- 
tion of Berytius, who lived in the time of Adrian. 
Jones wishing to get rid of the geoponics, and 
yet pay his friend's learning a just compliment, 
observed, " That in reading those ancient authors, 
there must be great difficulty in finding out the 
true meaning of their technical terms." — " That," 
replied the parson, " is the only difficulty, and 
many of the terms must ever remain unexplained." 
— " Don't you think, then, Sir," said Jones, " that 
my namesake, Sir William Jones, gave proof of 
his profound knowledge of the Greek in his 
translation of the speeches of Isasus, the true 
chancery cases of that day?" — " Certainly," said 
the parson, " it is a splendid monument of his learn- 
ing : as a scholar he was, indeed, a great man ; 
but I think he sacrificed too much to oriental lite- 
rature and Hindoo mythology; had he devoted 
half the time he gave up to the oriental languages 
to that truly venerable, comprehensive, and, un- 
questionably, original language, the Welsh, he 
might have found means of unlocking treasures to 
which such studies would have supplied him with 
a key that in his hand might have done wonders ; 
but though he had several times, in my hearing (for 
we were at College the same time), confessed that 
he would exchange any two of his languages for 
the Welsh, yet he never could be brought to en- 
counter it, such were the prejudices he had con- 



259 

ceived against the practicability of acquiring a 
knowledge of it, yet I strongly suspect that pride 
had a share in this irresolution; for though his 
father was a Welshman born and bred, and had a 
name that of itself almost stamped him of that 
country, vet when, by the patronage of the Earl 
of Macclesfield shown to his great abilities, he 
had arrived at a state of independence, and mixed 
with the higher circles, he studiously avoided 
being thought of a country that he must have 
conceived himself disgraced by, before he would 
take the pains he did to conceal his origin and lose 
sight of his kindred ; and this sort of pitiful 
pride, this littleness of mind, in other respects the 
truly great man, his son was not free from ; who, 
with all his talents and boasted acquirements, that 
would confer lustre and dignity on any origin, yet 
was not possessed of philosophy enough not to be 
disconcerted by any thing which glanced at the 
lowness of his own, I mean comparatively, be- 
cause he could not trace his pedigree to the nobles 
of the land, of whom Goldsmith says, 

' A breath can make them, as a breath has made j* 

but the honest yeomanry of Old Mona." You 
will perceive from the emphatical close of his sen- 
tence, that our guest is an ancient Briton, if not a 
native of the Druid island. I saw a kindred spirit 
mantling over Jones's countenance at the just 
censure passed on feelings so unworthy the great 
man referred to, which was ready to burst into 
compliment, when, having the start of him, and 



260 

addressing myself to the parson, " I honour you, 
Sir, for your sentiments, and the exultation of 
pride with which you speak of your country ; a 
country to pride one's self on, from what I have 
seen and know of it, and of late I have had a 
considerable acquaintance with it ; for wliat spot 
on earth can be more beautifully diversified, pic- 
turesque, without too great a proportion of the 
barren and the sterile, rich on its surface, yet 
richer beneath, as its embowelled wealth is inex- 
haustible, with as much hospitality and patriotism 
as the Irish, without their captiousness and Qui- 
xotism (for you must allow the dear little island 
has too much of that), and as much learning as 
the Scotch, without their reserve, their harsh- 
ness, their pedantry and temporizing supple- 
ness to turn it to account; to say nothing 
of its noble language and its literary trea- 
sures, every year unfolding, particularly its ethics, 
which, since I have been let into the light 
of by specimens of our friend Jones's trans- 
lation, I am truly astonished at, and am bold to 
pronounce superior to any thing handed. c(own to 
us of that kind from the ancients, not even the 
golden verses of Pythagoras excepted, and which, 
I trust, will find a native Hierocles to diffuse their 
fame." — " And you," saidJones> "have only had 
a sample of the moral triads ; they had their his- 
torical, poetical, and satirical triads, into which 
they found means of compressing more matter, 
sentiment, and point, than any human composi- 
tion o?*the same extent can boast of; for what 



661 

can exceed the justness of thought and the com- 
prehensiveness of the following poetical triads ? 

Tair sail awen ; rhodd duw, ymgais dyn, a 
damwain bywyd. 

The three foundations of genius ; the gift of 
God, man's exertion, and the chances of life. 

Tri phriv anhepgor awen ; llygad yn gweled 
anian, calon yn teimlaw, a glewder, a vaidd gyd- 
vyned ag anian. 

. The three indispensable requisites of genius; an 
eye to see nature, a heart to feel nature, and bold- 
ness and perseverance to go along with nature. 

Tri harddwch cerdd; mawl heb druth, nwyv 
heb anlladrwydd, a dychan heb serthyd. 

The three ornaments of song ; praise without 
flattery, gaiety without licentiousness, and satire 
without vulgarity. 

" Then, for satire, what can be more pointed than 
the following, though rather ungallant ? 

Tri feth sydd ar wraig, a garo weled y cyntav 
nis anghar y ddau aralli, wyncb ei hun mcwn 
drych, cevyn ci gwr o bell, a gordderchwr yn ei 
gwely. 

There are three things, of which if a woman 
likes the first, she will have no dislike to the other 
two : to see her own face in a glass, her husband's 
back far off, and a gallant in her bed. 

.6 3 



262 

" And who knows Avhat mines of such wealth 
are yet to be discovered, were private cabinets 
more liberally opened to research, and public li- 
braries better arranged ?" 

Jones, by his rapturous panegyric, had touched 
the chord that reached the very soul of his friend, 
rousing all that was Briton in him, till his enthu- 
siasm knew no bounds, and even geoponics were 
forgotten. Then addressing himself to Jones, Ck I 
am happy," said he, " to find that, much as you 
have been out of it, you have not been seduced 
to forget your country, and that your Saxon com- 
panion, uncontaminated by that cockney narrow-, 
ness of conception that induces half the English 
to suppose that Wales is an imperfect sort of crea- 
tion, has the virtue and the liberality to allow it 
all the merit it so justly is entitled to. Thus 
richly endowed, beautified, protected, and bounded, 
it would seem as if Heaven had ordained Wales to 
be a sanctuary to preserve a genuine remnant of 
mankind." 

I know not how it is, Charles, with your coun- 
trymen, and the Caledonians, but nationality has 
such an effect on these Welshmen, that not only 
their voice assumes a more dignified tone, and their 
language becomes more figurative, but with the 
enlargement of the mind their very forms seem to 
dilate. After this colloquy on stilts there was no, 
bringing them down to the sermo pedestris, and I 
thought it cruel to provoke them with common 
topics, so I voted for retiring, that they might 
chew the cud on this. The morning has risen 



263 

most auspiciously for our Stonehengc excursion, 
and we are hurrying through all our business, to 
be prepared to attend the summons of our pilot of 
the downs, whom we expect every moment ; 
therefore Jones is at his post, making breakfast, 
while his friend, by a recapitulation of some of 
the subjects which so interested them last night, 
makes the tea-brewer almost forget, if not ashamed 
of, the process employed in producing so unheroic 
a beverage, which the parson still hopes he shall 
live to see supplanted by toast and mead, after 
Queen Bess's receipt, in old Fuller, the only 
chance of restoring our primitive stamina, that 
the plant of China had destroyed. You know I 
am a furious breakfast-eater, and how I hate to be 
hurried at that most delicious of all repasts, 
though it lack the Cambrian hydromel, so strongly 
recommended by our clerical guest ; so adieu till 
we get to Salisbury, 

P. S. I hope to be in London in three or four 
days : your letters then in future must be addressed 
to my Chambers. 



A BARROW-OPENIXG AT EVERLEY, AUTUMN 1805. 

Day has pal'd his gairish light, 
And yields his empire to the night 5 
The spirits of the neighb'ring down 
Claim the season as their own, 
In murky mists as hov'ring round, 
They circle «ach his separate mound, 
5 4 



£64 

And, with sad. terrific yells, 
$fourn their violated cells. 

In this dark, this witching hour, 
First let us due libations pour j 
And be the awful tribute shed 
3fd reconcile the mighty dead 5 
Bur watch, and see no eye profane 
Peep on us through trie broken pane * 5 
And that none with footsteps rude 
On our mysteries intrude : 
Then let the solemn rites begin, 
Bring the urns, the largest, in f 5 
Round them all the smallest place; 
Like satellites their state to grace j 
And let the spear and dagger's pride 
Rival each other, side by side ; 
Bring many a relic green as leek, 
Crusted with the verd antique -> 
The drinking-cup, with nothing in't; 
Arrow-heads of bone and. flint y 
With the leaves of gold that shone 
On the Arch-druid's breast alone, 
When his office bade him go 
To cut the sacred mistletoe j 
Whetstones bring of every kind, 
From the coarse to the refin'd \ 
Amulets of various form, 
Gifted to raise or lay the storm j 
The talisman of power to steep 
The lid of care in balmy sleep 5 



* This was literally the case, the window of the inn being in 
a shattered state. 

f As a finale to the entertainment, on the last .evening of our 
meeting, the different urns and other relics, the produce of our 
researches, were laid out- with great taste on the board after 
dinner, as an .antiquarian dessert. 



£«5 

And the adder-stone, whose sway 

The spirits of the deep obey ; 

In festoons then round them set 

Beads of amber and of jet ; 

Next bring the smallest urn we have, 

Taken from a Druid's grave, 

Urn which we the thimble call, 

Than nest of humming-bird more smatt, 

With a precious balsam fill'd 

By magic's wondrous power distill'd, 

Essence of rarest gums and clews, 

Which Tydain *, parent of the muse, 

From Drfrobani's distant shore 

To his much-lov'd Britain bore, 

Unchangeable in smell and taste, 

Not subject to corrupt or waste ; 

The flame approaching, let it melt, 

And through the loop-hole of a celt 

Drop three drops into the fire, 

The mystic number we require ; 

Whence issuing a perfume is found 

To purify the space around, 

Of potency to guard from blights 

'Gender'd in autumnal nights, 

And th' initiated to screen 

From every harm that lurks unseen ; 

With many a flinty arrow-head, 

Found in the hunter's narrow bed, 

'Bove which, companion of the chase, 

His faithful dog had burial-place : 

Lastly, bring the relic known 

To be the rarest thing we own ; 

The kidney pebble, which appears 

Once, perhaps, a thousand years, 



* Tydain Tad Awen, the father of the muse, makes an illus- 
trious figure in the Welsh historical triads ; soma will have him 



to be the same with Taut or Hermes. 



266 

Tor all the ills a sovereign cure 
Which sportsmen in their reins endure. 

Nothing now, I ween, remains 
But to chaunt old Arcol's strains, 
Which to hymn the day he chose, 
When Abury's mountain columns rose ; 
And, the stupendous labour o'er, 
His harp he vow'd to string no more : 
In the chorus, got by heart, 
Let John and Stephen * bear a part : 
Illustrious barrow pioneers ! 
Who never yet have had their peers. 
But the notes seem flat and dull, 
The choir is not as usual full 5 
Full how can the concert be, 
For Druid Mordred, where is he, 
At our solemnities whose pride 
And office still was to preside ? 
Whilst aguish vapours cloud his sight, 
Hating converse, hating light j 
See ! where in his Hakpen Hw$r f 
He languishes away the hour, 
Dead to its furniture around, 
And rich mosaic on the ground. 
Great Mordred absent, who can tell 
How to pronounce the closing spell ? 
Which, supplied by him alone, 
Demands a more majestic tone 5 



* The two labourers, father and son, who are constantly em- 
ployed on this work. 

f Alluding to a bower which the gentleman here alluded to, 
Mr. Cunnington, of Heytesbury, has so arranged, as to repre- 
sent on its floor, with different coloured pebbles, the plan of 
Abury, which was one of the grandest temples ever designed by 
man , consisting of an immense circle of twenty-two acres, with 
an avenue on each side of a mile long, to figure a winged ser- 
pent. Hakpen is an oriental word signifying the serpent's head. 



267 

Then, till health restore our friend, 
Abrupt our ceremonies end. 
Quick the relics then withdraw, 
With regret, but mix'd with awe. 
Or shrieks of troubled ghosts I hear ? 
Or is it fancy mocks my ear ? 
Rest, perturbed spirits, rest, 
Vanish and mingle with the bless'd j 
Think no longer, that, your foes, 
We come to break your dread repose j 
But from motives pure we trust 
To scrape acquaintance with your dust j 
Those numerous piles of pious toil 
Man may level with the soil ; 
But with all the beauteous swells 
Which cover your sepulchral cells. 
Whatever changes be their lot, 
If swept away and clean forgot, 
This sacred, death-devoted plain 
In Crocker s * colours shall remain ; 
For know, the costly page that saves 
From chance of future spoil your graves, 
The splendid monument by Hoare 
Shall last till time shall be no more ! 



Stourton, November 1Q, 1S07. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

After an interval of two days I again 
resume my pen, to give you a cursory account of 

* A most ingenious draftsman, who attends Sir Richard 
Hoare on these occasions to make drawings of the contents of 
the tumuli, as well as tumuli themselves, for illustrating the 
learned Baronet's intended work. 



268 



the manner in which it has been employed, and of 
the things we have seen and heard. Our Cicerone 
from Heytesbury was punctual to a minute, and 
there was no delay on our parts to attend him. 
After congratulating us on the fineness of the 
day, he asked us how we meant to travel : we an- 
swered, in a post-chaise. — " Why, then," said he, 
" Gentlemen, you must permit me to have the 
conduct of it as to its pace and its pauses, as I 
should w T ish to show you some things in the way, 
and introduce you to the principal object with the 
greatest effect ; therefore I must stipulate for re- 
gulating every stage of this excursion." For all 
the apparent mock solemnity couched under this 
mysterious caveat we were at a loss to account, 
yet we professed to submit ourselves entirely to 
his direction. On our road to Stonehenge our in- 
telligent guide showed us camps and ancient Bri- 
tish trackways, and made most judicious observa- 
tions on every thing he called our attention to ; 
but we had not got many miles before our con- 
ductor ordered a halt, insisting, for reasons he 
was certain we should hereafter approve of, that 
we should continue to proceed the remainder of 
the road with the blinds of our chaise up ; a mo- 
tion we most cheerfully complied with. Thus in 
darkness and durance we travelled rapidly for a 
few miles, till our captain, with a most majestic 
tone, issued the word of command, " Stop, down 
with the blinds ;" when, lo ! we found ourselves 
within the area of the gigantic peristyle of Stone- 
i ige. In every approach to this stupendous 



le, particularly that which we took, it is seen 
>r some miles before you reach it, and every eye 
ill discover it too soon ; so that on this extended 
►lain at such a distance it appears nothiug, and by 
me time you are at it all astonishment ceases ; but 
when it bursts suddenly and all at once on the 
eye, as it did on ours, not familiarized by a gra- 
duated approximation, the effect is wonderful. 
I know not if the subject of Stonehenge has ever 
occupied your attention ; if it had, I think, I 
should have known it ; and, therefore, on the sup- 
position that you are still a stranger to the various 
opinions entertained of this majestic monument of 
antiquity, you may not think a summary of the 
whole tedious, as Jones's vade-mecum furnishes 
me with a brief account of the hypothesis of 
every writer who has touched upon it. The triads 
mention it as one of the three great works. 

Jeffrey of Monmouth ascribes the erection of 
it to Merlin, who, as he lived in the time of Au- 
relius Ambrosius, in Welsh Emrys, is called 
Merddin Emrys, to commemorate the Saxon 
treachery in the massacre of the British nobles 
there assembled, to meet Hengist (and the true 
Saxon name is Stonhengist). It seems the honour 
of having given a place first to these wonderful 
columns, is by many allowed to your country, 
and that they once stood on the Curragh of Kiklare, 
but that Merlin by magic that he was supposed 
to be skilled in, removed them to the plain on 
which they now stand; though Jones accounts 
for this without magic or the aid of the devil, 



270 

whom Merlin was said to have employed as his 
chief engineer on this occasion, by supposing 
Merlin or Merddin a great mechanic for that age, 
to have been sent to Ireland to survey your more 
ancient Stonehenge, and to have raised this on the 
model of it; a work so colossal, and, for the rude 
era we may date it from, such an evidence of art 
and improvement in mechanism when compared 
Tvith the massive simplicity of the colonnade of 
Abury, that it is no wonder they should resort to 
preternatural means to account for it. Camden 
considers it a piece of work such as Cicero calls 
insanam sub struct lonem \ for says he, " There are 
erected in form of a crown, in three ranks or 
courses, one within another, certain mighty 
stones, whereof some are twenty-eight feet high 
and seven broad, on the heads of which others 
rest crosswise, with tenon and mortise, so that 
the whole frame seems to hang, and therefore 
Stonehang or henge." Without entering into 
much argument, he rather laments that the history 
of so curious a monument is so, obscure; adding, 
that in his time there were some of opinion that 
the stones were not natural, but an artificial com- 
position. Inigo Jones will have it to be a Roman 
temple of the Tuscan order, to the god Coelum or 
Terminus; a hypothesis which his son-in-law, 
Webb, has endeavoured to defend with a great 
deal of learning and ingenious sophistry. In op- 
position to him, Doctor Charlton as strenuously 
assigns it to the Danes, and endeavours to prove 
that it was built to amuse themselves during their 



271 

short-lived triumph, whilst Alfred was in conceal- 
ment. Sammes conceits it to have been the work 
of the Phoenicians. Aubrey contends for its 
having been a temple of the Druids long before 
the time of the Romans. Doctor Stukely follows 
him, but with all the visionariness that his fine 
fancy was capable of. Wood is nearly of the 
same opinion, but delivers himself more soberly 
in his treatise. A lecturer on the subject in 1792 
will have it to be a vast theodolite for observing 
the motions of the heavenly bodies. A whimsical 
tract among Hearncs collections, entitled, " A 
Fool's Bolt soon shot at Stonage," maintains, but 
not with much humour, that it commemorates a 
bloody battle over the Belgae by the Cangick 
giants; whilst in a manuscript Jones saw with 
an uncle of his, in the Welsh language, said to be 
written by Humphrey Llwyd, evidently a piece of 
ingenious raillery, it is made out to be a play- 
place of the giant race, where the game was a sort 
of complicated cricket, and that the holes observ- 
able in some of the stones were occasioned by the 
balls striking against them. That it was a grand 
conventional circle of the Britons there can be no 
doubt, and long subsequent to Abury and many 
other lesser works of that character to be found 
over England and Wales, as in its formation the 
pure principles of forming such circles, which 
would admit of no art, were in some degree aban- 
doned — a proof that at this period probably Chris- 
tianity had begun to interfere with the institution. 
As to the stones, certainly not found near, some 



272" 

contencl tliat they are of various qualities and 
countries : granite, jasper, porphyry, and granu- 
lated quartz ; that the altar-stone is a species of 
porphyry, from the Black Mountain in South 
Wales ; and that others are from the Pyrenees 
and Finland, no such being found in this island ; 
but the majority are disposed to trace them all to 
one family, to the Grey Wethers near Marlbo- 
rough, about thirty miles off, a tract of sloping 
ground still dotted with numerous stones appear- 
ing on the surface, the loose sandy soil in which 
these nuclei were bedded having in the course of 
ages been washed away ; and to corroborate this 
opinion, our intelligent Cicerone, Mr. Cunnington, 
who in his remarks on every thing he attempts to 
speak on is clear and convincing, showed us at inter- 
vals some of the stones that in the carriage tothespot 
had been dropped, exactly in the direction to the 
Grey Wethers. The day being bright and plea- 
sant, we traversed this vast plain in every direc- 
tion, were shown the cursus, which plainly tells 
its story to this day, on a scale to suit the magni- 
ficence of Stonehenge ; and groups of tumuli df 
all sizes, most of which had been opened under 
the inspection of Mr. Cunnington, who enter- 
tained us with a most interesting account of the 
discoveries made in them, and ingenious deduc- 
tions from their contents to ascertain their age 
and their comparative rank. There was a group 
called the Prophet barrows, which he said had 
been productive of a number of curious articles:; 
but being asked how they came to have that ap- 

4 



273 

pellation, he informed us that the French pro- 
phets, a set of fanatic impostors in the early part 
of the last century, from these elevated mounds 
were used to deliver their oracular doctrines, 
which, wild as they were, like those of Joanna 
Southcote's at this day, had a large party to give 
them countenance. The group, he said, belonged 
to the Rev. Mr. Duke, an amateur antiquary, 
whom he had the pleasure of attending when they 
were explored; a circumstance that had been 
made the subject of the same gentleman's muse, 
who recorded the Everley treat, in three sonnets, 
which though too flattering to him, yet as he con- 
sidered the little praise he was entitled to or re- 
ceived as part of the main compliment to the 
great patron of the undertaking, even when Sir 
Richard Hoare's name was not mentioned, he 
hoped he might be permitted to refer to with- 
out the charge of any unbecoming vanity, 
and request our acceptance of, to commemorate 
this day's excursion, which he had the honour of 
conducting; and as I know you are as fond of 
poetry as of the subject of the specimen in ques- 
tion, I send you the sonnets, which, I agree with 
Jones, have a great deal of spirit, and perhaps 
more so frpm being bastards, for they are stamped 
with illegitimacy. 

I am < told that your Curragh of Kildare ha* 
sprrie kindred features with this awful plain, and 
that, though you have been robbed of your Stone- 
henge, your tumuli still remain, and examined, if 



S74 

at all, very partially and immethodically. May it 
be reserved for you to illustrate this venerable na- 
tional record, and by so doing throw a light on 
your early history. I assure you I have seep and 
heard so much of those primitive sepulchres, that, 
had I your fortune, there is no pursuit I should af- 
fect with more avidity. 

Having consumed the day in our rambles, we 
took up our quarters for the night at Amesbury, 
a town on the skirts of the downs. Here is an 
old mansion in a very ruinous state, formerly the 
favourite retreat of the late Duke and Duchess of 
Queensberry ; and in the groves that embosom it 
were once heard the melodious strains of Prior 
and Gay, 

*' \yhen Kitty was beautiful and young j" 
where now only 

" The moping owl does to the moon complain/' I 

The house, I believe, has never been inhabited 
since the Duchess's time, and the manor annexed 
to it is rented for five hundred pounds per annum 
by Sir James Mansfield, Chief Justice of the 
Common Pleas, to supply him with game; but 
chiefly for the sport of coursing, which he is pas- 
sionately fond of, and where he runs down hares 
with as much eagerness as Jbe once did chancery 
causes, though the suits here have a quicker end. 
The old Judge is at the head of a coursing club 
which meets here in autumn annually for a week, 



275 

during which time all the members in their turns 
' make and are made examples of" a favourite ex- 
pression among the Greyhound Hunt. 

The inn at Stourhead made us fastidious as to our 
accommodations; and being the scale we applied to 
every house we stopped at, no wonder that so 
few came up to the standard ; yet in the present 
case, the whole day in keen air on the downs had 
given us an appetite for food and fire, and, so there 
was a sufficiency of both, we were indifferent as to 
the cookery or the colliery. Our evening, it is 
true, wanted the sal Atticum of our masked friends, 
but it had its competent seasoning of the: utile 
and the duke. In the recapitulation of our day's 
adventures Mr. Cunnington convinced us that he 
was no superficial antiquary, but was a man 
of strong understanding and exquisite sensibi- 
lity. Jones's clerical friend gave us several 
anecdotes of the late Duchess of Queensberry, 
whom he represented to the last as- retaining traces 
of great beauty, which her strange manner of 
dress, in spite of all fashion, and calculated to 
produce an ugly disguise, and even age, could not 
subdue; and if the lustre of her eyes in the last 
year of life was remarkable, what must it have 
been at the a^e when Prior in his beautiful song com- 
pared her to Phaeton, borro wing her mamma's chariot 
for a day to set the world on fire ! He said that 
long after, at a time when their fire might be sup- 
posed to be abated, there was a story current of a 
carter with a pipe in his mouth happening to p 

T S 



$76 

by her carriage with the Duchess in it as it 
stopped at a silk-mercer's, and struck with her 
beauty and the irresistible brilliancy of her eyes, 
begged the favour of lighting his pipe at them — a 
compliment she was always proud of referring to 
when her admirers used to flatter, saying, That's 
nothing to the carter. '" And pray, Sir," said I, 
" do you think that any lady possessed of her 
great understanding could have been gratified by 
such hyperbolical adulation ?"— -" Yes, Sir, I 
really do think it ; Solon's Tvu9t osavjcv, which was 
said to have been dropped from heaven, does not 
seem to have been picked up by many of us ; ftie 
very best and wisest of men are too apt to form 
erroneous opinions of themselves; and we are all, 
perhaps, too much addicted to conceit that our 
deserts are greater than they are ; then praise be- 
comes more or less flattery in proportion to the 
excess of slich conceit. I was," continued he,, 
" at the same time of the same college with 
Charles Fox, at Oxford, and knew him well .then 
and after he had become a conspicuous public cha- 
racter. I believe the world allows him to have 
been possessed of as vigorous and manly an .under- 
standing, and less affectation, than most of his 
contemporaries, the young men of fashion of the 
day, could boast 01 ; yet so ignorant was he of 
Solon's heaven-descended scroll, and so little con- 
scious of that infirmity which is the last and most 
difficult to overcome, that he was often heard to 
profess that he was not accessible to the vanity of 
adulation ; wherefore there was a trap laid to as* 



277 

certain how fai* his professions would bear him 
out; and, though the bait was obvious, it took, and 
the great statesman was caught. A noble Earl 
now living, with Mr. Hare, and several of his 
other intimate friends, being of a party with Mr. 
Fox once, in the country, agreed to assent to 
every thing he proposed and extol every thing he 
uttered, however repugnant to their own senti- 
ments, or however absurd in itself; but after two 
or three days passed in this sort of masquerade, 
they asked him if he seriously thought them in 
earnest when they approved of all the inconsist- 
encies that fell from him during that time : Fox, 
like an electric shock, feeling the force of the 
appeal, and obliged to own his weakness, replied, 
f That never struck me, but I never passed two 
1 such pleasant days in my life.' " Recurring to 
the Duchess, Jones said he was told, that after the 
death of her son, by grief her natural liveliness 
of disposition was sublimed into a wild eccentri- 
city, bordering at times on a slight derangement, 
and numerous instances of a conduct to prove it 
are on record ; for she has been known to go 
into a shop in the city, and to have taken a parti- 
cular liking to the shopkeeper's wife for no other 
reason than that she resembled the late Empress 
of Russia, which was followed up by repeated 
calls, and an inquiry into their circumstances and 
views, ending in Her Grace's getting a place of 
six hundred pounds a year under Government for 
the husband, besides making them many very 

T 3 



27S 

ample presents; yet their conduct in life was such 
as merited reproof rather than encouragement or 
reward; whereas on a worthy family, who had 
fallen from affluence by unavoidable misfortunes 
to extreme distress, though their condition was 
properly set forth with the most respectable cre- 
dentials by this recent object of her bounty, she 
never bestowed a farthing. Surely, to say the best 
of such capricious benevolence, it was, as Mr, 
Pope expresses it, l( doing good by whim." As I 
found that Jones's friend was in the habit of visit- 
ing Alma Mater every year, never missing a com* 
memoration, and that he was perfectly acquainted 
with, and seemingly felt an interest in the dis- 
cipline and regulations of the University of 
Oxford, and as I had there the orphan son of 
a poor relation, to whom I am guardian, who is 
now on the point of passing his first examination, 
I was anxious to know what he thought of the 
late mode adopted, if it was calculated to sift real 
genius, or only puzzle by quaint set questions, 
which those who ask have always by rote, and 
the asked may answer by the same means?— *• 
" Why, Sir," replied our clerical guest, " I can^ 
not say that the examinations, as they are now 
conducted, are what, in my humble opinion, they 
ought to be ; certainly they are stricter ; that is, 
they don't make it a mere matter of form, as it 
was in your time, and in mine, long before ; but 
still the examination is that ( of schoolboys, all 
mechanical, and to young men of real genius very 
humiliating; while the examiners, with too pe- 



m 

antic a scrupulosity, make quantity, accent, or 
some such secondary consideration the test of 
those qualifications by which the examined are to 
rise or fall, though the best classical scholar I ever 
remember never could read ten lines either in 
Latin or Greek without a lapse or two of that 
kind; yet, notwithstanding, no man understood 
his author better, or talked or wrote those lan- 
guages more critically or fluently. A superficial 
mechanical logician, such as I fear most of the 
examiners are, is a contemptible tiling, and vet a 
smattering: of logic is much insisted on at this 
probation ; and I am bold to contend that even 
too much stress is laid on mathematics, and many 
an excellent scholar in other respects, for want of 
readiness in this science, has been rejected ; or, 
to use the vulgar scholastic term, plucked. Now 
let us see who the probationers are : if you ex- 
cept a few young men of fashion, the majority of 
whom aspire to nothing above four-in-hand, there 
are ten trained to the church for one that is de- 
stined for any other profession. Ought not, then, 
theology and ethics to make a part of this proba- 
tionary catechism? and that to consist not merely 
of the construction of the Greek Testament and 
Grotius, and of Aristotle or Seneca, but of a 
competent knowledge of that religion which 
springs from the harmony of the Gospels, and of 
that moral philosophy whose fruit is never racy 
and valuable but as it is grafted on it? or, in other 
words, ought mathematics to be encouraged 

t 4 



280 

almost to the exclusion of religions a science which, 
I fear, by engendering arrogance and presump- 
tion, and inducing its possessors to withhold their 
assent from every thing that cannot be proved, as 
if what is only the subject of faith, revelation, could 
be demonstrated like a problem in Euclid." 

Thus passed our evening till near eleven, when 
our antiquarian oracle and the divine took their 
leave of us and retired, as they both had occa- 
sion to be off early ; the one to explore a British 
village on the downs, and the other to complete 
his hydraulics after the manner of the ancients. 
The next morning our guests had not much the 
start of us, for we had left our beds and break- 
fasted betimes, wishing to make the most of the 
short clay. To Old Sarum we had not far to go, 
one of the most curious specimens that we have of 
the mixed work of the different periods at which, 
and people by whom, it was occupied; there being 
still extant manifest traces of its British, Roman, 
Saxon, and Norman inhabitants, the whole form- 
ing a stupendous aggregate, It stands on very 
high g r oiuid, and from it may be seen the branch- 
ing of the Roman roads, and one very distinct to 
the north-east. It is estimated to be in compass 
about five thousand feet Eigen, the daughter of 
the renowned Caractacus, reported to be the first 
female saint of Britain, having married the regu- 
lus who swayed this , district, is said to have re- 
sided here. The later emperors seem to have 
much frequented it, as many of their coins are 
fpund here. It was a favourite spot of the Saxon, 



881 

Egbert, and Edgar called a parliament here. Nor 
were the Norman kings less attentive to it. The 
see was removed from Sherborne first to Salisbury, 
then to this place iu 1056; but the church he be- 
gun was finished by his successor, Osmund ; and 
if ex pede Herculem, from the only entire relic 
now extant of that fabric, in the gardens of the 
College at Salisbury, it must be allowed to have 
been a magnificent Gothic building. In 1220 the 
see was again removed to Salisbury, and the pre- 
sent cathedral built by Bishop Richard Poore, about 
the year 1227 ; Peter Bleseusis being said to have 
prophesied of that event sixty years before. 

Few places have exercised the ingenuity of ety- 
mologists more than this, and my companion's in- 
teresting note-books furnish me with a variety of 
conjectures, and some ridiculously fanciful, such 
as that of old Baxter, who will have Sarum to be 
a corruption of the British Sar-Jvon, that is, 
angry or violent river, which ran at the base of the 
hill on which is placed Old Sarum, and flows through 
the streets of the New ; though the Wiley is of a 
directly opposite character. Johannes Sarisburicnsis 
calls it Severia, from the Emperor Severus ; but 
the Roman name of Sorbiodunum is much nearer the 
mark, being an almost literal translation of its 
original British appellation, Caer Sar/llog f the 
fortified place abounding with the service-tree. 
Now sarins is service-tree in Latin, and dunum is 
a commoji katin termination for places which 
have the adjunct dun or caer in the British; so tlut 



282 






it was impossible to latinize the word with less 
violence to the original. 

After an hour passed in exploring this singular 
spot, we descended to the modern Salisbury, 
where I found letters from my uncle, who has 
just got to London, requiring me to hurry thither 
as soon as possible, so that our plan of resting here 
a day or two is frustrated. We therefore lost no 
time to visit the beautiful relic of Gothic archi- 
tecture brought from Old Sarum, to which a letter 
from Mr. Cunnington procured us admission. It 
was at first attached as a sort of vestibule to some 
part of the new cathedral, but, in the rage for in- 
novation, cut ofT like a scirrhous tumour, and dis- 
carded, and now fills a respectable situation after 
its disgrace of being doomed to mix with rubbish, 
in the charming grounds of H. P. Wyndham, Esq. 
member for Wiltshire, to whose taste we owe the 
preservation of this elegant little portico, as he 
rescued it from oblivion, and took pains to repair 
and perfect the building where it was defective 
from other outcast fragments of the present cathe- 
dral, when it underwent reparation about half a 
century ago*, and much of the chaste simplicity 

* It bears this classical inscription from the pen of the gentle- 
man to whom it belongs : 

" Hanc aedem, olim in vicina urbe Sorbioduni extructam, et 
postea ad Novam Sarisburiae urbem transvectam, ubi, per plus 
quingentos annos, ecclesiae cathedralis portam borealem, jam 
nunc occlusam, vestibuli loco adumbraverat, hie demum Decani 
Capituliq. assetrau, collocari curavit 

" H. P. Wyndham, 
A. D. 1767." 



283 

of that fine fabric was sacrificed to the fantastic 
frippery of modern designs, 

We ordered an early dinner, and while that was 
getting ready we paid a tantalizing visit to that 
splendid monument of Bishop Poore's spirit and 
taste, the so much justly celebrated cathedral, a 
model of the purest Gothic, till the late innova- 
tions had destroyed the consistent harmony of its 
parts; but our examination of it was too hasty to 
please ourselves, and therefore I shall not attempt 
any thing by way of description, for we could 
scarcely give ourselves an hour to see what, to do 
it justice, demands a day at least. 

In our way back to the inn we secured places 
in the mail for that evening, and had only time to 
hurry our dinner before we were summoned to 
the coach, which landed us in London about nine 
o'clock the following morning: I have occasionally 
found this mode of conveyance productive of 
great entertainment and great variety of charac- 
ters ; but in this instance T found an exception, 
our companions for the night being perfectly un- 
social : the one a Quaker, by his demurene?s and 
dress, whom the spirit never once moved to utter 
a syllable, not permitting his rigid stiffness to 
relax into a yea or nay ; the other an Italian, with 
the looks of an hereditary assassin, and a stiletto in 
every feature, who was as silent as the Quaker, 
but Whose countenance spoke more, I fear, than 
his tongue could dare to utter. I learned that he 
was confidential valet to a great man : what a re- 
ilectiou ! to think of preferring a set of foreign mis- 



284 

creaats to our ^n. countrymen, and perhaps by 
so doing nourishing vipers in our bosom. I won- 
der, with such a. pack of wretches, rapacious and 
vindictive, always about their persons, that our 
men of fashion are not oftener doomed to feel the 
midnight dagger or the slow-consuming poison ; 
but it is a depravity, that, before it is corrected, 
bids fair to be severely punished. Jones, with his 
command of sleep, escaped from the misery of this 
silence and confinement that I was awake to all 
night; while my constant employment was to ven- 
tilate the coach every five minutes, and purify the 
air, contaminated by the rocambole breath of the 
Italian. At my chambers your welcome packet 
greeted me. It gives me infinite pleasure to find 
that my communications from the Carmarthen 
manuscript have been so acceptable, and that 
Conoily is of the same opinion with you as to pub- 
lishing the whole, which, from looking more into 
the contents of my purchase, will make a hand- 
some modern octavo, what with the Shakespearian 
farrago, the prophecies, and two or three whimsi- 
cal scraps of more recent date, probably collected 
by the. person who last owned the book. I shall 
therefore avoid giving the chance of publicity to 
more of my ancient treasures, and yet I cannot 
forbear treating you with a specimen of the pro- 
phecies and their notes variorum, which I shall 
tack on to my next, having already pledged my- 
self in this to give you the antiquarian sonnets I 
have referred to, and which Jones at another table 
i§ now copying \Q be inclosed. It may be some 



285 

time before you hear from me again, as a letter 
from my uncle acquaints me with his having left 
town for Hampshire, where he has engaged to 
pass his Christmas at a relation's, and has requested 
me to follow him without delay ; so that to-mor- 
row I shall again box myself in a coach, and 
Jones proposes a visit to Bury, where I suspect 
there is a magnet of very attractive power, that is 
likely to rescue him from celibacy. I have heard 
nothing of late from a certain quarter, and I al- 
most dread to inquire. 

Adieu, my dear Charles, and let me live in your 
remembrance. 



THREE SONNETS TO MR. CUNNINGTON, 

TO WHOM THE WORLD IS INDEBTED, UNDER THE PATRONAG1 
OP SIR RICHARD HOARE, FOR DISCOVERIES THAT CANNOT 
PAIL TO THROW NEW LIGHT ON THE PRIMEVAL HISTORY 
OF BRITAIN. 

AT MEETING HIM ON SALISBURY PLAIN. 
I. 

O thou, on whom each antiquarian eye 

Is turn'd, as when the mariner from far 
Stretches his aching vision to descry 

Through Night's dark vault some tutelary star. 
Benighted long I hail thee as the day 

That bids the wanderer all his fears dismiss; 
What joy to meet thee, pilot of my way. 

And meet in such a latitude as this, 
Where o'er the boundless ocean of a plain 

To steer the self-same course that thou hast been, 
Is ever safe, as in the South Sea main 

Wherever Cook's adventurous track is seen j 
For, till thy time unknown, 'tis thine to boast 
To haye discoyer'd well this curious coast. 



88(5 

ON OPENING THE PROPHET BARROWS. 

II. 

Hither were wont mad prophets to repair 

For facts unborn to search Time's mystic womb, 
And vent their impious ravings to the air — 

Imposture all ! who dares to pierce the gloom ? 
Fallacious ray allied to error found, 

No ignis fatuus leads our steps astray -, 
Fearless we tread, though death's deep night surround, 

Where'er thy polar star directs the way. 
The rod augurial in the miner's hand 

The mineral world is gifted to unfold j 
More wondrous still the magic of thy wand j 

It turns whate'er it touches into gold. 
Oh ! for that splendid epoch, when the ore 
Its sterling impress shall receive from Hoarb ! 

ON ATTENDING THE REV. MR. I>UKE, 

TO WHOM THE ABOVE GROUP OF BARROWS BELONGED, TO 
DIRECT THE THREE OPERATIONS OF OPENING THEM: BEING 
THE FIRST TIME OF HIS BEING PRESENT AT SUCH A CE&JE« 

MONT. 

III. 

Auspicious morn, by prophets long foretold, 

To Sarum's plain once more that calls my friend, 
The dark sepulchral uysteries to unfold, 

And Duke's initiation to attend : 
Oh ! let the young noviciate for his guide 

Look up to thee, in mind thy precepts bear, 
That when thy mantle thou shalt throw aside, 

The mystic robe he may deserve to wear* 
In Egypt's piles, the wonder of mankind. 

Sages in vain the labyrinth pursue, 
But in our rival pyramids we find 

No secret chamber that eludes thy clue : 
Like Mai a's son, where'er thcu wav'st thy hand, 
The dead appear obedient to thy wand. 






287 



December 29, 1807. 
MY DEAR HIBERNIAN, 

After three weeks interruption of our 
correspondence I again take up my pen to give 
you some account of myself. A Christmas in a 
country gentleman's house is pretty near the same 
the kingdom over; a noisy mixture of epicures, 
sportsmen, and boarding-school boys and girls ; 
hunting at the hazard of y our neck in the morning ; 
feasting every day laid with a continuardo ; after 
dinner hard drinking, and the chase again over the 
bottle; between tea and cards, by way of inter* 
lude, sl waltz by the young ladies, and spouting 
by the young gentlemen; during which exhibi- 
tion, to please mamma, you must affect to see the 
graceful agility of Deshayes in the daughters ; 
and to ingratiate yourself with papa, an embryo 
Garrick or a Tully in the sons. Then succeed 
that odious thing called a round game, and, what 
is still more odious, a hot supper. However, as 
some counterbalance to half a dozen professed 
Nimrods, we had one gentleman very entertain- 
ing, an intimate of the late Dr. Goldsmith, who 
knew my father a little, and was one of the last, 
if not the last survivor, of the celebrated literary 
club of that day : he was a man who at the age of 
seventy-four looked only sixty, but studied to 
play the boy more than became him, had an inex- 
haustible fund of anecdote, and told a story with 
infinite humour. He gave us several original 

4 



£88 

traits of Goldsmith's character highly honourable 
to him, treated us with many jeu-d'esprits of his 
own and his early contemporaries, and by his 
lively description made the wits of times gone by 
pass as it were in review before us : the ponderous 
lexicographer now moving like an elephant, at- 
tended by the lord of Auchinleck, now playing 
like a kitten with his learned hostess at S treat- 
1mm ; Garrick, all finesse, and gasping for ap- 
plause; Goldsmith, a strange compound of bril- 
liancy and blunder ; Hugh Kelly, a lump of affec- 
tation ; and old Murphy, who , in his narratives 
had the opposite vice to his favourite historian 
Tacitus, for he said one of his stories would con- 
tinue from the rising to the setting sun, and he 
has been often known to go on with it during the 
whole of dinner, not the least sensible of the 
total inattention of his hearers. I suspect that 
this gentleman had been in some diplomatic cha- 
racter abroad when young, for he knew a great 
deal of most of the courts of Europe, whilst Eu- 
rope had courts ; he told us, among- many curious 
particulars that had occurred to him, that he 
knew a Dutchman who had been hanged and had 
his throat cut, and yet survived to be reconciled 
to life; for in a fit of jealousy he had gone up- to 
his chamber, which was over the kitchen, and 
hung himself up to the bed-post, but in his strug- 
gles he had kicked down a chair, - or made some 
violent noise, which so alarmed the cook, who 
was then dressing dinner with her knife -in her 
hand, that she ran up stairs just time enoVtgh to 



289 

* 

save her master's life, as, in trying to cut the cord 
lie was suspended by, her knife slipped, and cut his 
Vhroat, which restored him to animation. The 
other very remarkable thing he told us was, that 
lie had once dined at the Piazza Coffeehouse in 
company with five men who were afterwards 
hanged : the two Perreaus, Doctor Dodd, Hack- 
man, and Donnellan. He has been of great ser- 
vice to me, being well acquainted with Lisbon, 
and with the very merchant on whom I have a 
claim in right of the late Mr. Hwlfordd, which 
without his assistance I fear I should never have 
recovered, though I may be obliged to go thither' 
myself before I succeed : besides, having great 
India connexions, and being pleased to take an 
interest in my fortunes, he asked my uncle if he 
thought I should have any objection to go abroad, 
as he thought he should soon have it in his power 
to offer me a situation that would be worth my 
acceptance. For this last week, since my return 
to town, I have been plagued to death with law- 
yers and conveyances, having sold the houses in 
Dublin, and that most unpleasant species of pro- 
perty, tithes; yet my uncle, who Iras not been 
in London for some years, and has a large and 
fashionable acquaintance, has given me a sort of 
entree into life. You know that neither you nor 
I had seen much of what is called the world for 
the two or three years we had been in town, tor 
we had no idea of pleasure a mile from the Temple 
Coffeehouse, or much beyond the Theatres, and 
seldom threw ourselves in the way of an invitation 

V 



290 

to the court end of the town, even shrinking 

from good Lady M 's monthly dinner, though 

most of the guests and the whole entertainment 
were of a costume that might have been in fashion 
at the Revolution, and we might be said to be out 
of the world ; but I have of late been truly in it, 
and have seen so much of its unmeaning felly as 
to make me pant more and more for a retirement 
among the mountains of North Wales. You have* 
routs, I suppose, as well as riots in your capital, 
and I presume you may have had a practical 
knowledge of the former ; but since Dublin has 
been drained of people of rank by the Union, I 
should suppose they must be on a very small 
scale compared to ours: I was the other evening 
at one, where, from first to last, there were from 
four to five hundred names announced, and two 
thirds of those unknown to the furnishers of the 
entertainment (if entertainment that can be called, 
which is exactly what Dr. Johnson defines a rout, 
a tumultuous crowd) but by a reciprocation of 
such follies. Having made many morning calls 
the same day, I had an opportunity of contrasting 
the faces of several of the ladies at the two dif- 
ferent seasons of the day ; for the pale primroses 
of the morning were become rosebuds, nay, full- 
blown roses, in the evening; so that they could 
hardly be known. What a masquerade this life 
is ! and think you their hearts are as much in dis- 
guise as their cheeks ? An evening party is a sort 
of half-way to a rout ; but a small evening party, 
which is generally fixed fpr Sunday, is the acme of 



291 

insipidity; and of such I lately was so unfortu- 
nate as to make one : it seldom consists of more 
than twenty or twenty-five ; men of a graver cast, 
and ladies rather a 1' antique, and generally calcu- 
lated for the more quiet amusement of some dow- 
ager aunt with bad nerves, the effect of sixty 
years dissipation ; or the gradual initiation of some 
female cousin, a young country put, not yet safely 
fresmtablc every where, though she talks with 
rapture of Marmion, which she cannot under- 
stand, and may have written a novel, which no- 
body will read. Being announced in a tone of a 
more domesticated pitch, fitted to the occasion, 
you walk up with your crescent hat growing to 
your side, and one dirty glove on, to the lady of 
the house, and after half a dozen scrapes and 
bows, in receding you have a chance of treading 
on the lap-dog, which was my case, and I was 
confused for the whole evening. To make your 
situation pleasantly tenable, the praise of Pug and 
the old china is an incense you must offer. The 
gentlemen may look sentimental, but they say 
little ; but all the conversation is carried on in a 
low key by the ladies, and chiefly turns on the 
amusements of the preceding, and what is an- 
nounced for the coming week : says one lady to 
her neighbour, " Pray, my dear, what have we 
for this w r eek ?" — " Profusion of good things," re- 
plies the other : " on Monday night Lady C — r sees 

masks to spite her beautiful neighbour Mrs. O n, 

>vho opens her house for the same purppse. Tuesday 
morning the dancing monkies in Bond Street, and 



ogo, 

the Maltese girl without arms, who plays the vio- 
lin within her teeth ; and for the evening, our old 
friend the deaf Countess's rout. On Wednesday 

Mrs. V 's dinner and the harp. On Thursday 

the Opera. On Friday the new actress. And on 

Saturday Lord B *s infantine theatricals, by 

children not more than eight years old ; with 
duets between the acts by bullfinches." For the 
honour of old Ireland, I hope you have nothing 
worse than this. In another fortnight, from my 
uncle's present bill of fare, I suspect I shall lrave 
wherewithal to amuse you in my next. 

Yours, &c. 



London, February 32, 1808. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

I am sick of law and lawyers : for this 
fortnight past I have not been a day without some 
interruption from them, though they come to en- 
rich and not to impoverish me ; yet for all that I 
do not like them : 

" Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." 

You must know that my uncle in his day was esr 
teemed a man of vertii ; and not having seen 
London for some years, he is resolved to renew 
his old acquaintance and revive his old habits. 
With most of the great painters thirty years back 
he was intimate, particularly with him who was 



£93 

facile prbiceps, Sir Joshua Reynolds ; but of 
many of those who now figure away at the head 
of their profession, with R. A. ami knighthood in 
their train, he then scarce heard the names ; some 
of them he might have seen copying at Sir 
Joshua's, or trying their talents on drapery and 
back-ground. However, he devoted ever} morn- 
ing of. a whole week to visit the most eminent ox 
the present artists, the majority of whom are por- 
trait-painters; and certainly portrait-painting must 
be confessed to be the noblest department pf the 
art, inasmuch as a man excels a tree ; however 
finely imitated a landscape may be, still you may 
sec a better by looking out at your window ; and 
in history you can catch but one point of time, it 
is fancy supplies the rest. I 7 pktara poem : the 
parallel may hold a little, but the powers of the 
pencil must yield to those of the muse, if nature 
is to be described, or the passions illustrated : 
were Claude to live again, and paint the four sea- 
sons in his best manner, I would pronounce 
Thomson's superior pictures ; and where is the co- 
louring that can produce Shakespeare's Macbeth : 
13ut in portrait-painting the muse must own her 
inferiority, and resign the palm to the pencil, 
which is employed not only to imitate the grandest 
work of creation, but to give a sort pf immorta- 
lity to that which, without such aid, perishes, not 
to admit of renovation in this world. Of all the 
painters of this class, the man whose performances 
please me most is Sir William Beechey : his like- 
nesses the most prejudiced must allow to be 

u 3 



294 

commonly striking ; and as to taste in the disposi- 
tion of his figures, and calling out the 60ul of 
character, he is unrivalled : then there is as little 
affectation about his style as himself — all is 
nature; there is no parade or charlatanrie belong- 
ing to him, as there is to several of his fraternity : 
not content with being painters, some of them as- 
pire to be poets too : one deals in the pastoral, 
rural, and descriptive ; another in sea-pieces ; and 

a third sets up for a censor. But Mr. W 11 

knows as little of the country and the scenes he 
employs his verse about, as a cockney who has 
never been further than Bagnigge Wells, or his 
villa tub in a paled spot six feet by four, where he 
measures the progress of vegetation by the growth 
of a true lover's knot, or his wife's cypher in pep- 
per-grass ; yet his poetry has this peculiar excel- 
lence, that it reads backward or forward equally 

well. Mr. T m's pencil is " resistless and 

grand," but his muse at sea is a perfect emetic. 
And as to Mr. S — ee, though he certainly has some 
pretensions to call himself a poet, yet I doubt if 
his censure be just, and he is not querulous with- 
out a cause ; and when he affects to give precepts, 
let him be reminded of ne sutor ultra erepidam. 
Besides, didactic poetry never made a man perfect 
in any art; for were there no other directory for 
brewing cider than Philips's poem, I take it the cel- 
lar in Maiden Lane would have but few customers. 
What is Fresnoy's Art of Painting but poetical 
.pegs, though turned in Dryden's and in Mason's 
athe, to hang Sir Joshua Reynolds's notes and it 



295 

lustrations on ? Not that I have the Honour of 
having F. It. S. or F. A. S. to page the heel of my 
name, yet I have lately visited the two societies 
they characterize, my uncle being a member of 
both. It seems a club formed of several gentle- 
men belonging to the Royal Society, dine 
weekly together at the Crown and Anchor during 
the session of Parliament on the day the society 
meet; and my uncle having an extensive acquaint- 
ance with many of them, particularly some he 
had known in India, was invited as well as myself 
as guests : a circumstance from which I promised 
myself great entertainment, but was much disap- 
pointed. The dinner, in the first place, was very 
bad, and so scantily supplied, that literally it 
would not have been enough were it not for some 
excellent doe venison which one of the members 
from his park had contributed ; and had it not 
been for the gentleman himself, we should have 
lacked food for the mind. The company was very 
motley in rank, age, and talent, and seemed to 
want that congeniality of sentiment which is the 
cement of society. You found from the conver- 
sation of almost every one of them his darling 
pursuit, and the system he most favoured : one 
look an opportunity at every turn to refer to gyp- 
sies ; another, to stones dropping from the clouds ; 
a third, to a new mode of bleeding poppies ; a 
fourth, to the dissection of a pine-cone; whilst a 
fifth broached a doctrine respecting the human 
form wilder than Lord Monboddo's, of which no 
man could make either head or tail ; yet take. 

v 4 



296 

either of them out of his respective line, and he 
was silent. The first was toujours a la Bohemiemie, 
and nothing else. The stone-shower man, unless 
you admitted of the possibility of raining pebbles, 
was a mere petrifaction. The man of opium, 
shut out from poppies, was a perfect narcotic. 
And the. pine-cone dissector's know ledge was li- 
mited to that anatomy. But the gentleman who 
by his aid of the bill of fare had saved us from 
hunger, and by his general knowledge and pleas- 
ing powers of communicating it had kept conver- 
sation from stagnating, was alone more than a 
counterbalance for all the phlegm, formal dul- 
lness, and eccentricity of the rest of the company. 
After a temperate circulation of the glass and 
coffee, we adjourned first of all to the Antiquarian 
Society, where I found the account given of its 
process by one of the masked travellers no way 
exaggerated; afterwards to the Royal Society 
room, where a most tedious and stupid communi- 
cation, on the nature and power of lenses, w T as 
read ; a paper in itself so heavy and involved, had 
it not been rendered more so by the monotony of 
the reader, that it soon appeared to have acted as 
a soporific on half the room, and the reading of 
which, to prevent a general torpor, the President 
himself, feeling his lids weighed down, proposed 
to defer, which was done accordingly, to the no 
small satisfaction of most present, not excepting 
pld Mr. Cavendish. So much for two boasted so- 
cieties ! 

J,ast night for the first time I visited the House 



297 

of Commons, and my expectations were raised in 
proportion to the importance of the scene. 
Though prepared to see a room, from what I had 
beard, rather small, I was astonished to find it li- 
terally not large enough to hold all its members 
without danger of suffocation, ill lighted, and 
worse heated. However, I thought I should cer- 
tainly have specimens of fine oratory, and, not- 
withstanding I as so fortunate as to hear some 
of our most eminent speakers that night, they fell 
infinitely short of the idea I had formed of a good 
orator. As to the matter of the speeches, I shall 
not presume to enter into a disquisition of it, and 
hazard an opinion ; but as to the manner, without 
any danger of lodgings in Newgate, it is a fair 
subject of animadversion, and I am bold to say 
that, with an exception of one or two, nothing 
can be worse, or more anti-Ciceronian. How it is 
possible that the highest bred gentlemen in the 
Jand, who on other occasions deport themselves 
with gracefulness and dignity, can, at a moment 
when their most exalted feelings ought to be 
awake, lose sight of all, and accompany delivery 
turbid and inflated, with gestures the coarsest and 
most undignified, without ever suiting " the action 
to the word, or the word to the action/' oh ! as Ham- 
let says, " it offends me to the soul." Mv uncle in a 
peevish tone only muttered, " Had you seen the old 
Robin Hood in its best days!" I was astonished to 
hear some of our brethren of the gow n make so poor 
a hand of it ; men voluble enough and eloquent at 
nisi prius. I have been told that there have been 



298 



instances of men of that profession who could in 
the Court of Kings Bench speak for three hours 
together, to the admiration of all who heard them, 
in that House absolutely fainting in limine, as it 
were, paralyzed by the awful change of situation, 
and in no better plight than I was on making my 
first motion. My uncle talked of your House of 
Commons, when you had a Parliament, as a noble 
room, and seemed to lament, with many others, 
the want of a senatorial habit. 

I shall be again lost, perhaps for a month or six 
weeks, having had a summons to visit a place 
where every thing that is most clear to me, and 
every thing my heart could possibly desire, would 
be found, were Health of the party, which I fear 
is not the case. I forgot to tell you that my 
uncle, who yesterday took his leave of me for 
Dublin, is much for my accepting the offer made 
me of a situation at Bombay, a thing that would 
exactly suit my inquisitive mind, were it not for 
my Eliza, without whom, though possessed of th^ 
wealth of India, I could not be happy. Jones, 
who will be in town to-morrow, occupies my 
chambers till I return, and will take care to for- 
ward your letters. Adieu till my eclipse is over. 

P. S. I believe I promised to treat you with one 
of the prophecies out of my manuscript collec- 
tion ; but my amanuensis not being there, and in 
the present distraction of my mind, it is out of 
?»y power to perform it. 



299 



Petersfield, March 28, 1-80S, 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

If you recollect, I some time ago told 
you that I should have occasion to visit Lisbon, 
where I have no less a sum than two thousand 
pounds due to me, and the recovery of which is 
now put into such a train, by means of the gen- 
tleman I met in Hampshire last Christmas, that 
without returning to London, having here with 
me all the necessary papers for the purpose, I in- 
tend setting out immediately, especially as I have 
an incitement for expedition infinitely more power- 
ful than that of gold, the critical state of my 
Eliza's health, which it is the opinion of the 
ablest of the faculty might be likely to benefit 
by the air of Portugal, so that I shall have the 
happiness of accompanying her and her mother ; 
with haste, then, 

* ' I fly to snatch her from the rigid north, 
And bring her nearer to the sun." 

By the first week in June I am engaged to be 
in North Wales, where I have much to do re- 
specting the mortgages I have there; and when I 
have settled the redemptions and foreclosures, I 
pledge myself to be with you as soon as the en- 
chanting scenery I shall pass through will permit 
me. You flatter me much by pressing on me the 
publication of my foolish letters, which if they 



300 

have any merit, they derive it from being addressed 
to you, and your approbation ; but you assign an 
additional, and & much better reason for making 
them public, as they are the vehicle of several 
choice morceaux of modern poetry and curious an- 
cient fragments, that cannot fail to interest ; and 
likewise announce the prospect of much enter- 
tainment to every lover of literature, from an ap- 
pearance of a much greater portion to match the 
tantalizing sample. Before this arrives I may 
probably be in the midst of the Atlantic ; but on 
land or sea. believe me ever 

Yours, &c. 



London, May 25, 1SOS. 
JIY DEAR CHARLES, 

I am once more, thank Heaven, in Old 
England, after having had a taste of other coun- 
tries and climates ; but I must say, in the rapturous 
language of the old song, 

" They are my visits, but thou art my home'" 

I told you in my last to consider no news as good 
news, and to rely on it ; therefore, as things turned 
out better than I had a right to expect, I did not 
plague you with letters, but send you now a large 
packet, containing a cursory journal of my foreign 
travels. When I wrote last it was my intention 
to have gone t6 Lisbon with my Eliza and her 



SOI 

mother, but by letters received from that country 
the following day it was represented to be in such 
a state of ferment and alarm as to render it abso- 
lutely necessary to abandon our first destination ; 

and as we found that Mrs. II and her brother 

were then at Portsmouth, about to set sail for 
Madeira, we hastened to join them — a change in 
our plan which the medical men seemed highly to 
approve of; so that I in the first instance overshot 
my own mark, to see my treasure safely deposited 
in that island, and having consigned it to the 
tender care of our most amiable and sympathizing 

friend, Mrs. H , I set sail for Lisbon, where 

I have been successful in my mission, am returned 
in health, and continue to have favourable ac- 
counts from Madeira. During my absence I have 
lost my excellent uncle, who had always been a 
second father to me, and has left me the last sur- 
vivor of my family. Having never been married, 
and having no relations that required a provision, 
he had so disposed of his property as to give him 
a greater life income, and by that means a greater 
command of such things as gratified his fine taste, 
and contributed to his ease and comfort. Personal 
property was all he had to leave, and that he be- 
queathed to me, chiefly consisting of a well-chosen 
library, a valuable collection of drawings, prints, 
and coins ; and among the books several topogra- 
phical works, illustrated; that is, enriched with 
the spoils of others ; particularly Pennant's Lon-< 
don, which has been swelled by that sort of inter- 
larding from one ordinary-sized quarto to thirty 



303 

volumes folio, which he has been heard to say 
cost him at least five hundred pounds, and has. 
been valued at a thousand. He had, besides, 
a few choice cabinet pictures, and several 
original portraits of the literary characters of his 
time. Jones has not been idle ; for having left 
him the manuscript farrago I picked up in Wales, 
he has most judiciously arranged it for the press, 
and out of the rudiments of a tragical event at 
Lucca, as found among Shakespeare's memoranda, 
and communicated to him by a gentleman he there 
names and refers to, has sketched the outline of a 
most interesting tragedy, and has filled up three 
acts in so masterly a manner as bids fair to restore 
Melpomene to her pristine rank in the British 
drama. But yet when he has finished it, it will 
be difficult to prevail on him to bring it before tha 
public, such is his extreme diffidence and genuine, 
modesty, without a particle of affectation, owing" 
to which I fear his great abilities will be lost to 
the world. I shall be nearer to you in my next, 
which I hope will be dated from among the 
fountains in North Wales ; so, till then, adieu ! 



Barmouth, June 7, 1S08, 
Mt DEAR CHARLES, 

With Jones still my entertaining compa- 
nion, though full of the tragic muse, I left London 
the first of this month, having taken our places in 
the Holyhead coach to Corwen in Merionethshire* 



303 

Our fellow-travellers were two of your country- 
men, the most haughty and uncommunicative X 
ever met with : they never once condescended to 
address us on any occasion, but overlooked us 
with ineffable contempt, confining their conversa- 
tion entirely to themselves, and the subject of it 
principally to their own country. They talked of 
the parks and lodges of their fathers and uncles ; 
the beauty of their mothers and aunts ; and their 
alliance to half the peerage of the United King- 
dom ; fighting duels in saw-pits ; Curran's elo- 
quence ; Lake of Killarney ; the Irish pipes ; A — r 

O c C r; Bogwood; Dublin Bay herrings; the 

clearness of the LifTy; and whiskey punch. In 
our defence we were, therefore, obliged to narrow 
our colloquial amusement to each other; and 
though at times, improvidently perhaps, some- 
thing would escape us that had a tendency to 
rouse whatever was Milesian in them, and to ignite 
stuff less combustible, yet it was luckily never 
rioticed, or deemed not worthy of being so, and 
no flame took place. I was struck with a remark 
that dropped from them, reminding me of a similar 
one from my poor uncle at a private concert we 
were at in town last winter ; for said one of them 
to the other, and not without a strong dasli of 
the brogue, " Why, Captain, now were you not 

astonished to see Mrs. B n the other evening 

at Lady L 's not only as a performer but an 

intimate guest, after what you heard my father 
say of the winter of her debut at Dublin, when 

poor T y B— — n, on his return from England, 

4 






304* 

where lie had gone to fetch his bass-viol, was 
either pitied or laughed at by all who knew him? 
Surely it cannot be the same person ; though after 
a quarantine of twenty-six years one may be en- 
titled to clean bills of reputation. She has the 
credit of being very rich, having considerable 
sums vested in the Junction canal and embank- 
ments in Wales." At Llangollen the Irish grandees 
left us, stopping there to pay their respects to the 
two ladies, their countrywomen, the Linda Mira and 
Inda Mora, whom every body has heard of, who came 
there professedly for retirement, yet whose cottage, 
situated on the road-side, is literally a house of call 
to all who travel to and from the dear country, as 
well as for all curious and impertinent pedestrian 
tourists, female novel-writers, and maudlin poet- 
esses. Our former hasty transit through North 
Wales was by a different road, so that this lovely 
vale I knew nothing of but from description; and 
where is the pen or the pencil that can do justice 
to the beauty or the grandeur of the scenery? 
The vale of Llangollen for the picturesque stands 
unrivalled ; broken into the most enchanting in- 
tricacies, finely wooded, with the Dee winding its 
" wizard stream" through it, and rising from its 
banks the lofty conical hill of Castle Dinas y bran, 
crowned with its aerial castle, partly hid in clouds. 
What a pity that art should be employed to de- 
form this lovely scene by the formal line of navi- 
gable canal above the margin of the romantic river 
that rolls and roars beneath it! it is like tattooing 
a beautiful face. It seems, as. we heard afterwards 



305 

at Corwen, that we had passed close to the site of 
Owen Glendwr's palace, in the heart of his vast pos- 
sessions, which I should have cast my eye on with pe- 
culiar reverence, as, in my opinion, he was a great 
man, and merited a more honourable appellation than 
that of rebel. At Corwen his portrait supplies the 
sign of the principal inn. This is a noted rendezvous 
for the disciples of old Isaac Walton ; and here I 
saw, on an angling party, a gentleman whom I 
recollect to have been pointed out to me one 
morning last winter, at an eminent painter's in 
town, as one of the greatest patrons of the mo- 
dern artists, and into whose gallery, which, I un- 
derstood, was superbly furnished, none, or very few, 
pictures (perhaps by way of contrast) are admit- 
ted, highly to his honour, but those of the British 
schooL Hence we diverged, in a chaise, to Bala, 
where I had business with the ao-ent of a o-entle- 
man on whose estates I had a mortgage of two 
thousand pounds. The day happened to be the 
last of a Methodistical association there, which 
generally continues for part of three days ; so the 
town was crammed. The weather beino- remark- 
ably fine and warm, the dome of their temple was 
the canopy of heaven : as the street, filled from 
side to side, was impassable, we abandoned our 
chaise, and wedged in among the crowd to hear 
the peroration of the sermon, then near its do* 
and in the preacher recognised our lame fellow- 
traveller in the mail from Carmarthen last Oc- 
tober. His manner was not at all ranting; his 
language and allusions very familiar, yet not 

x 



506 

&nd the effect on his audience wonderful, His 
discourse was a mixture of Welsh and English, 
or chiefly Welsh, with some striking portions for 
the benefit of a casual Saxon auditor, like myself, 
paraphrased into English. It was the farewell 
sermon. He and another of the officiating chap- 
lains at Lady Huntingdon's Chapel, in Spa Fields, 
were the most distinguished in the multitude of 
preachers. A number of pious cadets between the 
acts, and now at the finale, before the curtain 
dropped, had an opportunity of trying their ta- 
lents, and feeling their ground, by prayer. With 
these miscellaneous ejaculations the association 
was dissolved, and I followed the preacher to his 
horse, which his servant had in waiting, for him 
immediately to mount, being engaged to perform 
in the evening at the next town. I purposely 
threw myself in his way, and he recollected us 
with the same smile of good humour, and the same 
cordiality, that marked his parting with us at Nar- 
berth, when his heart seemed at his fingers' ends. 
He rode a fine cream-coloured horse, that would 
not have disgraced His Majesty's stud. In his 
walk I could perceive not the least halt; and our 
naval mail-coach traveller would have said that 
he was repaired and sound in his lower timbers. I 
am told that the salient mania, to which this holy 
man owed his accident, as the naval wag informed 
us, and which spread like wild-fire over the princi- 
pality, had its origin at this place, and that the 
first fanatic bacchants filled tjiq roads by night for 



307 

miles round, and fatigued the echoes of Aran* 
with their orgies, though at present the frenzy 
appears to have much subsided. The Lake of 
Bala is the first piece of water of the true lake 
kind I have ever seen, and that I am therefore in 
raptures with it there can be no wonder. It is 
called in the Welsh language, Llyn Teghyd; The 
beautiful long lake. It is in compass about nine 
miles ; the water extremely clear, and in the centre 
very deep : it abounds with trout, perch, and a 
species of fish, they say peculiar to it, called the 
gwyniad, but mean eating. On the south side of 
it, in an elbow of the hill, prettily recessed and 
embosomed in wood, at the head of a lawn that 
gradually slopes to the margin of the lake, having 
in front the blue range of the Arennigf Moun- 
tains, stands the elegant villa of Sir Richard 
Hoare, who, we heard, was then there, and to 
whom, after dinner, we took the liberty of paying 
our respects. We found him at home with a gen- 
tleman, a friend of his, of similar pursuits. They 
were just going to take their usual evening diver- 
sion of perch-fishing, in a commodious boat be- 
longing to the Baronet below the house. We were 
pressed to join them, and had we not had sport, the 
luxury of the scene would have amply gratified us. 
There was not a breeze to ruffle the azure mirror of 

* Aran is the name of the highest mountain that bounds the 
lake of Bala. 

f So called, as Jones conceives, from their summits being 
broken into kidney -shaped forms : Arennig, he says, being an ad- 
jective that would answer to kidneyish in our language, could w« 
be bold enough to coin it. 

x S 



308 

the lake, in. which the inverted landscape, with all 
its grandeur and variety, then richly illumined by 
the setting sun, was charmingly reflected. After 
an hour's amusement on the water Ave took tea, 
and had a treat of most interesting conversation. 
The Baronet's guest, I jbund, had been bred to 
the bar, and, rf not a native of North Wales, had 
once gone that circuit, for he knew my uncle Ro- 
bert well, who passed the greater part of two 
summers about , seventeen years ago between Car- 
narvon and Beaumaris. They had, during the 
month of May, been rambling over South Wales, 
and were reposing for a fortnight after their fa- 
tigue, in order to be prepared for exploring the 
northern part of the principality. During their 
sojourn here their mornings, if fair, were occu- 
pied in antiquarian excursions near home ; and if' 
rainy, by their pens and pencils : they dined at 
the rational hour of three, and their evenings were 
passed similar to this. Being made, acquainted 
with the principal bearings of our journey, they 
were so polite as to sketch for us such a route as 
would best accommodate itself to our time and 
course. The hours flew away insensibly, and we 
did not reach our inn till half past eleven, where 
we found every thing hushed after the raging 
tempest of methodism. I had often heard it said that 
the best house in every town through Wales is the 
attorney's, and so we found it here. The next 
morning, with our itinerary made out, we set off 
for Dolgelley, and arrived there to dinner. This 
- town is situated in a beautiful valley, on the banks 
of a charming river bounded by Cader Idris, a 



309 



mountain very little inferior in height to the peak 
of Snowdon, on one side, and by hills on the other, 
which, but for their opposite neighbour, elsewhere 
would be deemed high. After an early repast, 
wishing not to lose time, we went to see the cas- 
cades in the vicinity of this place, leaving our as- 
cent to the mountain to the following morning. 
Our guide to the falls was one of the greatest cu- 
riosities we met with in our travels, though a little 
shrivelled man, at least eighty-five years old, yet 
active as a goat, and vivacious as a viper, with a 
great deal of low humour, who had that day been 
up with a party very early to the top of Cader 
Idris, and still had vigour enough to accompany 
us on this excursion in the evening. He is for 
four or live months in the year in the habit of un- 
dergoing such toil on an average four days in the 
w r eek. The falls we saw, to an eye like mine, 
which had seen nothing before to deserve the 
name, were most romantically beautiful, broken 
in the happiest manner, with their due proportion 
of wood and rock, by way of accompaniment; 
and what was most forrunate, the Naiads had 
their urns full, but not overflowing, for it rained the 
night before just enough to produce the effect de- 
sired. We lamented now more than ever our total 
ignorance of the use of the pencil, for never were 
subjects better calculated to employ it on. The 
next morning was as auspicious for the mountain 
as a warm sun and cloudless sky could make it. 
With our little guide dressed in the tnost fantastic 
manner, and on horses not much bigger than goats 

x 3 



310 

and as sure footed, we set off for the regions above, 
and, clear and warm as it was below, we fell in with 
some fleecy clouds, whose skirts were humid and cold, 
but they were transient, and, soon dispersing, left 
us an extensive view, though the horizon was in- 
volved in a warm haze. We agree, notwithstand*- 
ing this sublime prospect, that, taking the hazard 
of disappointment as to weather, on, and before 
you reach the summit of, the mountain, and the 
no small toil, as well as, in some places, owing to a 
giddy head, danger in attaining it, into the ac- 
count, what you gain, exclusive of the boast of 
having been there, does not repay you ; and it is 
one of those things that is better on paper than in 
reality. A nap on Cader Idris, as on Pindus of 
old, has the reputation of making a poet; but my 
companion being already made, and duly acknow- 
ledged by the Nine, had no need of sleep there to 
enable him to throw off the expressive lines I in- 
close, which he did with his usual rapidity when 
the fit is on him ; and he certainly seemed to feel 
inspiration from the mystic seat he occupied. 
Having started earl v, we had descended time enough 
for a three o'clock dinner, and to get to Barmouth 
in the cool of the evening on horseback; a de- 
lightful ride of ten miles, following the river 
Maw, navigable almost up to Dolgelley, and 
which, discharging itself at Barmouth, gives to 
the estuary the appropriate name, in Welsh, of 
Abermaw. We got to our place of destination 
before it was too dark to explore it, and take a 
mouthful of sea air, a luxury we enjoyed. The 
situation of Barmouth is the most singular I ever 



311 

saw ; till within these few years, since it has be- 
come a sea-bathing resort, the place, with the ex- 
ception of a very few houses on the flat, consisted 
of only two or three tiers of buildings on ledges 
in the rock, one above the other ; so that from the 
windows of the upper tier you could look down 
the chimnies of that below it ; but now at the base 
of this rocky cape, so built on, a new town has 
sprung up, having several good houses, inter- 
spersed with showy fashionable shops, and two or 
three large hotels, the most frequented of which 
is the Corsygedol Arms, where we inned for that 
night. The principal street is literally a bed of 
sand, ancle deep ; and if there is any wind, so 
much does a man inhale of it at every breath, that, 
before night, he becomes a perfect hour-glass ; yet 
such is the Oikophobia that prevails the whole 
kingdom over, that people of the first rank, to 
fly from home, and to be fashionable, prefer this 
arenaceous promenade to the velvet surface of 
their own lawns, content to occupy bed-rooms no 
bigger than band-boxes, and subject themselves 
to associate with all sorts of company at an ordi- 
nary here. After our short ramble, to avail our- 
selves of the post, that moves off at five o'clock 
in the morning, we bespoke a quiet but small 
room, and were retired for the evening : being too 
fatigued, from our mountain excursion, to be 
social, and mix with the supper party in the pub- 
lic room, we were resolved to minister to your enter- 
tainment ; Jones by his poetical inspiration among 
the clouds, and I by my humble prose. Adieu, 

x 4 



312 

fttld in future expect letters oftener, for each day 
shall supply its journal. And so Conolly has be- 
come a Benedick and a soldier uno fiatu ; this 
erratic planet has at last fixed between Mars and 
Venus ! 



WRITTEN ON THE SUMMIT OF CADER IDRIS, 

Here, where of old great Idris sate, 

T occupy my chair of state, 

And, all unrivall'd and alone, 

Feel myself monarch on my throne, 

Whence, as on little paltry things, 

I dare look down and pity kings j 

While, high above what clouds their scene, 

My mind enjoys a calm serene, 

And reason, with despotic sway, 

Forcing the passions to obey, 

No rebel sense provoking sin, 

Creates a little heaven within. 

Hence from gross vapours purg'd, my eye 

Shall pierce the sapphire of the sky, 

That from th* excursion it may come 

Humbler, and therefore wiser, home. 

Here, where no debts or duns annoy, 

Let me my solitude enjoy, 

And from the mountain's beetling brow, 

The scene quick shifting, turn below, 

Now, while the medium is so clear, 

To view my forked fellows there, 

And, with the help of optic glass, 

Describe the pigmies as they pass, 

See them pursuing different game ; 

To undermine their neighbours' fame 

By subtle practice, like the moles, 

Insidious in their dirty holes, 



313 

See ! some industriously employ'd; 
Exulting, some, o'er fame destroy'd : 
See ! up yon hill crowds puff their way, 
To swell a great man's public day, 
Who weekly spreads his ven'son feasts, 
To make himself and others beasts ! 
Yon prig, the priest, displays no note 
Of his high calling but his coat, 
To hunt, drink, dice, and give the toast, 
Is all his learning, all his boast j 
His thought the flesh alone controls, 
Let who will take the cure of souls. 
Yon wither'd thing, so bent with age, 
Feels in his veins the lecher rage, 
Into each alley pokes his nose, 
And after every tid-bit goes : 
And can cold embers hide a flame 
To mutiny in such a frame ? 
Of glow-worm phosphorus a spark, 
The fire of touchwood in the dark ! 

And are those they, the reptiles men, 
With whom I 'm doom'd to mix again } 
Of every passion to be slave, 
To deal with knaves be half a knave ! 
Rather, like Timon, let me run 
Monsters in human form to shun, 
Deep buried in some shaggy wood, 
The spring my drink, the herb my food $ 
Or live a pensioner on air, 
Entranc'd in this mysterious chair. 
Yes, to the world ere T descend, 
And this enchantment have an end, 
The spell I '11 cherish while I can, 
Forgetting, and forgot by man, 
And, purer from my reverie, 
Grow more like what I ought to be. 
The mist collects, enough is seen, 
The fleecy curtain drops between, 



314 

And shuts out from my painful view 

The world and all its motley crew 5 

Then let me, pausing, turn my eyes 

Into myself, and moralize j 

A moment giv'n to thought sublime 

Is worth an age of after-time 

Doom'd to be spent 'mong such as crawl 

And yawn out being on this ball, 

Which having ceas'd, no trace is seen 

To show that they had ever been, 

Nor other epitaph supplied, 

Than that they liv'd and that they died. 



Tanybwlchj June Q, 180S. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

I have passed another clay among the 
rocks and sand of this place ; and though I should 
not like to spend a whole summer here, yet I think 
it as well worth seeing as any thing in Wales. 
In our morning rambles we fell in with an anti- 
quary, who was busily employed digging in se- 
veral parts of the sand, even as far as the tide had 
receded, in quest of grave-stones, on the credit of 
some of the country people, who affirm, that 
many years ago, after a violent storm, which had 
washed away the sand to a great depth, tombs 
inscribed, but not legibly, were seen, as if a 
churchyard had been bared, and by them insisted 
on as a proof of the existence of that lowland 
region, which extended for many miles sea-ward, 
from the high ground now bounding it, called Can- 



315 

trev Gwaelod, that was said to have been over- 
flowed sometime between 460 and 590, in the 
time of Gwyddno Garanhir, the then regulus, and 
to whom most of the gentry of this eoast, I was 
told, trace their lineage, the posterity of his clan 
having continued to settle near the first spot of 
high land they met with in escaping from the ra- 
vage of the inundation : but this gentleman I take 
to be a suckling in antiquarianism, to suppose 
that as early as that period, to which Ave ascribe 
the first Christian establishment in this island, a 
cemetery filled with common grave-stones, de- 
scribed to him as those of modern days, could 
have been found, for I presume few churches (and 
very few they were then) had that appendage 
called a churchyard marked out; that devoted pre- 
cinct, as well as the posthumous tablets it con- 
tains, being of much later date. Passing the 
seemingly disappointed antiquary, for he clearly 
dug in vain, we fell in with a roving party like 
ourselves, and you know it is our plan to turn, or 
try to turn, every thing we meet to account; there 
was no digressing, for the ocean was close on one 
hand and the high sand barrier and beach on the 
other; so unless we had melted into conversation 
we must have been sulky indeed, and incapable of 
dissolving into sociability. The party we over- 
took consisted of four human creatures as unlike 
each other as it was possible : one was a gentle- 
man, who, though dressed in clothes of a cut fifty 
years distant from the present fashion, had still 
the visible appearance of a former beau, that no- 



tiling could obliterate ; a young Cantab, a true 
bang up four-in-hand man ; a blunt original cha- 
racter, with a strong understanding and a slight 
squint, which rather improved a very plain face, 
who was very loquacious, and never opened his 
mouth but a quotation from Hudibras flew out, 
that he always applied most laughably and dex- 
terously ; the other I could not place higher than 
the rank of a cockfeeder or cook to a kennel, who 
was as silent as his companion was talkative, sel- 
dom opening his mouth but to shift his quid. 
We found the two very opposite characters, as 
well as the young Cantab, were all in the train of 
the gentleman first noticed, who, I presume, 
was a man of large fortune in that country, as 
frequent reference was made to his draining and 
his mines. He had a racing calendar in his hand, 
seemed a perfect Clarencieux in horse-heraldry, 
talked of Newmarket as if he was at home, and 
was deeply read in the annals of the turf and the 
Jockey Club. After our luncheon of sea-air and 
sand we returned and dined at the ordinary ; we sat 
down about fifteen ; .the principal were, the group 
we joined on the shore ; the tomb-stone hunter, 
the disappointed antiquary ; a clergyman, who had 
the purpureas Jios, not of juventce, but, I should 
suspect, from his attachment to that beverage, of 
cerevisite, talked much of Charles Fox, with 
whom he had been of Hertford College^ and 
talked of it with some degree of pride, as having 
been of the same society ; a gentleman and lady, 
of whom the buzz went round that he had kept 






317 

an E O table, and was groom of the chambers to 
Graham's celestial beds in his youth, and married 
a Cyprian priestess from King's Place. He had 
here a splendid carriage, and frequently took oc- 
casion to mention his hounds, his hot-houses, and 
other luxurious appendages at his country-seat; 
while she, affecting piety, talked of nothing but 

the new light, the C r of the E r, 

H h M e, the Society for the Suppres- 
sion of Vice, and the. 13 p of St. D d's : a 

strolling player, who, as we learned afterwards, 
was a candidate for an engagement at a week's 
theatricals shortly to be furnished bv a o;entleman 
of that neighbourhood, who gave us after dinner a 
specimen of his talents in a few passages from 
Romeo and Juliet and Richard the Third, which 
he managed above mediocrity ; an elderly lady 
with two or three fine girls, her daughters, and 
one of them, who from the great familiarity that 
passed between her and the knight of the buskin, 
I imagine would have had no objection to have 
played Juliet to his Romeo : but the most striking 
figure of the whole set, and with whom I close 
the catalogue, Vas an old Cherokee country 
squire, who affected to talk Wfclshy, carried a 
hunting-pole as tall as himself, was followed by 
half a dozen terriers, and in his dress gave us a 
specimen of the old school : a blue velvet coat, a 
scarlet waistcoat, laced with gold, and gold laced 
hat triple cocked : the leader of our sand party and 
he were well known to each other, bandied about 
their raillery, and mutually gave hard knot! 



313 

but the man of lace was rather an overmatch for 
the miner, though backed by his two aid-de-camps, 
the quoter of Hudibras and the quidder of British 
rag, and ably by the former. It seems the mine- 
i'B'g gentleman, professing to work after a Stafford- 
shire plan, by perpendicular shaft, conducted his 
operations horizontally, which gave his antagonist 
such an advantage, that he and his bottle-holders 
shrunk from the contest, and soon retired. The party 
was now become small^ there being none left but the 
old fox-hunting Squire* the parson, and ourselves : 
smoking and ale was the order of the day, and as 
there was great originality and good humour about 
our companions, we joined them in the ale, making a 
virtue of necessity, for the wine was execrable ; 
when Nimrod addressed us, saying, " You seem, 
gentlemen, to like our ale ; it is a noble beverage 
if well brewed, but we have lost the art ; our 
wives and daughters are above superintending a 
process their mothers were educated to understand. 
I remember the days of the Caesars; but you, 
Sirs, may not understand my reference : — Which 
way are you travelling? for if you are going my 
road, towards Harllech Castle $but that is worth 
going out of your road to see), I could bring you 
better acquainted with the Roman Emperors I al- 
lude to. These were the days for ale and smoke- 
ing, when the bland vapour of the tube was not 
offensive to the finest lady ; which of late I could 
not have presumed to regale myself with till every 
female had vanished. Oh ! had you known the 
Druid society in its glory, you then would have 



319 

witnessed to a scene, clouded as it was, full of 
spirit and fire, when I remember, at the Bull in 
Beaumaris, as much smoke as was raised by the 
Romans when the devoted groves of old Mona 
blazed round the Druids of old — such was the 
honour paid to the Virginia plant ! The old King 
of Spain, who was none of your w r ine-bibbers, but 
had drunk at that time as much ale as would have 
floated a first rate, and I, have often sat with our 
pipes touching, and yet could not see each other 
for half an hour together ; and so had Sir Hugh 
and I at the Friars ; nay, in my own smoking* 
room, so deliciously obnubilated have we been, 
that I scarce saw one of my guests for the whole 
evening, our pipes being never out of our mouths, 
but to charge them anew and swallow our nip- 
perkins. During one of those festive fumigations, 
I shall never forget a young barrister entering at 
the most inspissated moment of the vapour, with 
whom I talked for some time unseen, knowing 
him only by his voice ; a conversation, as you 
may imagine, very mellow through such a fleecy 
medium ; but suddenly we lost him, for, not sub- 
limed enough for company like ours, he had slunk 
away by favour of our clouds to the ladies : a mere 
milksop ! not worthy of associating with such en- 
lightened beings as we were ; a sing-song fellow, 
full of small talk and himself, who was famous at 
handing round a plate of light cakes, and could 
write an ode on the head of a pin." 

Finding that our road lay exactly in the direction 
of this mansion, to which was attached the history of 






320 



the twelve Caesars, he proffered his services to escort 
us so far; so next morning, having agreed to start 
early, we left tills region of rock and sand, and 
after a ride of about five miles, with the sQa on one 
side, and a ridge of cloud-capt mountains on the 
other, we turned out of the main road through a 
gate which led by an ascent of great length into 
a woody avenue, previous to our approaching the 
place of our destination among the mountains, 
called Corsygeclol (the arms of which, as a sign, 
the inn at Barmouth displayed), the baronial 
residence for centuries of the Vaughans, descended 
from a branch of the Fitzgeralds in Ireland, soon 
after their being grafted on that country from 
South Wales, and to which our Cicerone boasted 
to trace likewise. The entrance to the house was 
by an old gateway, through a porter's lodge, so 
that we might have fancied it led to a college, angl 
the whole building wore an appearance not very 
foreign from it. " Mow," said our conductor, 
" you are within the august precinct of the Caesars: 
you must know, then, that in this house it was, a 
custom more honoured in the observance than the 
breach, to fill twelve casks containing a hun- 
dred and twenty gallons each with strong ale, de- 
nominated after the twelve first Emperors of Rome, 
and that each cask was twelve years old before 
it was of age to be tapped, and as soon as it had 
passed its minority there was another brewed, so 
that the imperial series was. always complete; but, 
alas ! the Caesar-brewing family is extinct, and 
now there is nothing left here but the husk of hos* 
. . .4 . 



021 

pitality; indeed, for some years I marked A\ith 
regret the decline of this Roman empire, and the 
noble fluid that characterized it; for at the last 
gentleman's table, who preferred whey, which he 
called the mulsum of Hippocrates (no Welshman, 
you may be certain), to that heroic beverage, very 
little was drunk, but in the form of a posset at 
supper, and it was no bad night-cap I assure you : 
but I will show you a room in which some super- 
annuated or supernumerary servants, and other old 
pensioners, a sort of heir-looms, useless live lum- 
ber, in the house, were drinking it from morning 
till night; they lived on nothing else ; like Boni- 
face in the play, they might literally be said to eat 
their ale and drink their ale ; it glued them toge- 
ther, and they lived to a great age without dissolv- 
ing, and at last they melted like sugar-candy/' 
The family of this mansion, he said, at the time 
when the two roses divided the nation, Which 
might have exclaimed, in the words of our im- 
mortal Shakespeare, "A plague on both your houses," 
were strenuous adherents of the Lancastrian party, 
and he showed us a cell in the garden where Henry 
VII. before his elevation to the throne, had beeu 
concealed, to avoid his persecutors. W it had not 
been for our new Cicerone, we certainly should 
not have seen this venerable place, which, on ac- 
count of its situation, character, and history, is 
worth a much greater digression than, we made to 
see it. Our companion, not willing to lose us, 
and seeinsr that we felt an interest in his coimnu- 
nicative originality, begged to conduct us as fai 

Y 



322 

as Harlech, which, much as he extolled it all the 
way, we found merited any panegyric that could 
be bestowed on it. It is one of the most finished 
specimens of the castellated architecture of Ed-~ 
ward's reign, with a view ; to strength more than 
elegance, and, seen from the sandy plain below, 
incorporated as it seems with the precipitous rock 
it stands on, strikes you with astonishment as to 
its height and massive solidity, which, if got pos- 
session of, would be tenable against almost any 
force ; for a sturdy Welsh captain, as Jones, from 
his universal vade-mecum, informs me, one David 
ap Evan ap Einion, kept Harlech castle, and all 
the lands belonging to it, fifteen years for the 
House of Lancaster, notwithstanding the formi- 
dable efforts to dislodge him, at last effected by 
Sir Richard Herbert, the rival of the Welsh cap- 
tain in prowess, person, and stature. Our moun- 
tain squire was not a little proud of having some 
of the blood of this gallant Welshman in his 
veins, which he trusted would run uncontaminated 
to its last drop. " You see," says he, " the effect 
of being suckled by one of the Csesars; no doubt 
the Harlech hero drank Corsygedol posset in his 
cradle— -an infant Hercules !" Jcnes having drop- 
ped some hints as to his veneration for Welsh ge- 
nealogy, and the squire having much to boast of 
in that way, w r ith a voice loud enough for a view 
halloo, addressed us ; " Gentlemen, I have not 
yet given you my pedigree, which I have by heart ; 
and though it is indebted to a thousand aps for 
stringing it together, I don't think I should lose 






a link in the chain ; a nun is not more perfect in 
the tale of her beads, so habituated have I been 
from my first lisp to call the roll over; for the 
first exercise my tongue and memory were put to 
was to enumerate my ancestors from the post-cap- 
tain in the ark to his latest descendant in Merio- 
nethshire, and my father's hounds by their names : 
so now," said he, " as I find my countryman here 
has a smack of our national failing, a taste for pe- 
digree, I will accompany you to Tanybwlch, the 
place of your destination, as I understand, for 
this night; and perhaps in that sort of learning, 
which I am not behindhand in, I may give you a 
treat; besides, my presence may serve to improve 
your quarters, for I am as well known there as the 
sign-post ; and if you like cockles and pancakes, 
you will have them there in perfection. I shall 
dispatch a messenger over the mountains to say 
where I am, and then my absence matters little, 
as I can swear the bastard child here to-morrow as 
well as at home, having that part of Burn at my 
fingers' ends; and as for the hounds, the parson, 
my whipper-in, will be on parade with them early 
enough to take* the field, and I dare say will 
have unkennelled by the time I shall join them." 
This charming little inn is situate in the beautiful 
vale of Festiniog, which old Lord Lyttclton so 
much and so justly celebrates, where lie says, 
" With the woman one loves, the friends of one s 
choice, and a few books, one might live here an 
age, and think it a day :" and it truly is the most 
lovely retired spot I ever was at ; the house neat* 

v Q 



324 

all accommodations good, and the pancakes so su- 
perior to any thing in batter I had ever tasted, 
that they ought to have a patent for making them. 
It was late before we dined, and the evening was 
chiefly spent in conversation between the two 
Welshmen, on subjects that fairly excluded me ; 
on the excellence of the Welsh language, a com- 
parative examination of its different dialects, and 
Cambrian genealogy. Jones contended, as a South 
Wales man, for the merit of his dialect, which he 
called the true Attic; and as a proof of it in- 
stanced the translation of the Scriptures, the book 
of life, in that dialect. — " Yes," said his oppo- 
nent, " because the principal translators might have 
been men of that country." — " Quite otherwise," 
replied Jones ; " for that noble work was known 
to be conducted by men of the northern part of 
the principality. Queen Elizabeth in 1566 issued 
a royal mandate to have the Bible translated into 
Welsh; however, the New Testament only was 
then published, the joint work of Richard Davies, 
Bishop of St. David's (though a North Wales 
man), and William Salisbury, of Caeder, in the 
parish of Llansannan, Denbighshire ; but the Old 
Testament was not completed till 1588, for which 
we are indebted to the labours of Dr. Morgan, a 
native of Merionethshire, afterwards Bishop of 
Landaff, with the aid of the Bishops of St. Asaph 
and Bangor; Gabriel Goodman, Dean of West- 
minster; David Powell, D. D. ; Edmund Prys, 
Archdeacon of Merionydd ; and Richard Vaughan; 
all decided Venedotians ; and yet they adopted the 



325 

dialect of Deheubarth or South Wales, undoubt- 
edly from a conviction of its superior excellence 
before they would presume to use it as a vehicle 
of those sacred oracles.'' — " Well supported, I ac- 
knowledge," rejoined the Squire; " and if it is so, 
I have no way of accounting for it, but by sup- 
posing that impiety prevailed more in South Wales 
than here, and that accordingly the language of 
that infallible directory to salvation was calculated 
for that people, who were esteemed to stand most 
in need of it." They then began a genealogical 
chase, springing at every step fresh game of 
princes and heroes, which they hunted down 
through as many subtle doublings and windings as 
a fox would take ; and I left them in a warm dis- 
pute about the dignity of the root of their respec- 
tive family trees, a contest that, Jones told me, 
was strenuously maintained on both sides, and was 
not decided till midnight, and then only by a sort 
of drawn battle. Notwithstanding the late hour 
of retiring, the Squire was up earl)*, and soon 
roused the whole house ; having got his justice bu- 
siness over, and swigged a bowl of milk punch, he 
was off for the mountains, leaving us with a com- 
pliment to Jones's heraldical knowledge, adding, 
that he ought to be made garter king at arms foi 
Wales. I am here among mountains of no con- 
temptible height, but my next will be from the 
more Alpine region of Carnarvonshire, where the 
monarch Snowdon holds his court : I exp ct d 
packet of letters at our next stage, \t Inch will cl 
rcrmine the course and duration Qf rr»v v 

v 3 



326 

ings ; for till I hear from abroad I scarce can be 
said to have any fixed plan ; only in this I am de- 
cided, that I am, and ever shall be, 

Yours most sincerely, &c. 



Bedd Celert, Jane 11, 1808. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

Were it possible to feel a satiety of fine 
scenery (though we lose half by not being* able to 
draw), I certainly should by this time have expe- 
rienced a surfeit ; but there is no such thing ; for 
there are features here so strikingly prominent, 
that there is no possibility of escaping, yet, by 
the change of the spectator's position, perpe- 
tually varying their effect, and incapable of tiring. 
Having seen the most interesting parts of Merio- 
nethshire, I proceeded to the adjoining county 
of Carnarvon, having occasion to make some 
little stay, if the news I shall hear will leave me 
master of myself, at the county-town, being en- 
gaged to meet an eminent solicitor there, with 
whom I have business relative to a mortgage that 
is likely to end in a foreclosure, on a spot that is 
described to me as possessing some of the most 
essential requisites of a picturesque, if not a ro- 
mantic landscape, and where we may yet meet to 
talk of the past and plan the future. I entered 
this county by way of Pont Aberglaslyn ; that is, 
Aberglaslyn bridge, a view of which I dare say you 



327 

have often seen, it having been a favourite subject 
with the artists and amateurs of the pencil. Above 
the bridge is a noted salmon-leap, where, particularly 
after any fresh from rains in the river, as was now 
the case, you hardly need wait ten minutes before 
you are entertained with the frequent exhibition of 
this salient property in the creature to surmount 
difficulties under the strong impulse of nature for 
the preservation of its species. The singular cha- 
racter we parted with at Tanybwlch recommended 
it strongly to us to visit a place not mentioned in 
the route sketched for us at Bala, a new creation 
of Mr. Madocks, Member of Parliament for Bos- 
ton, but a native of North Wales; instead, there- 
fore, of going to the right, according to our first 
intention, we took a turn to the left, and by a de- 
lightful road along the margin of an extensive 
tract of sand, at high tides partly overflowed, and 
under precipices of various heights, shagged with 
wood, over the crags of which here and there 
Avere seen " the pendent goat," arrived at Trema- 
dock, called after the founder's name. It con- 
sisted of above fifty houses, a large inn, and a 
town-house, with several buildings begun, and is 
situate in a small opening between the mountains, 
till within these six years all sand and moss, but 
by judicious embankment converted into solid fer- 
tile land. But this enterprising gentleman, a most 
valuable accession to his country, having- had a 
grant of that vast tract of sand called Traeth- 
mawr, so dangerous to be crossed, and which 
every year multiplied the coroner's inquests, ia 

Y 4 



328 

now employed in shutting out the ocean, prepara* 
tory to his reclaiming this sandy waste, and re- 
ducing it to the same state with the contiguous 
proof of his former successful exertions. His 
own heautiful villa is niched like an eagle's nest 
among the crags overhanging his new town, 
amidst thriving woods of larch and other trees, 
which now clothe the mountain's side ; in every 
part of which singularly built and situated man- 
sion, both within and without, the greatest taste 
is displayed. And though the patriotic proprietor 
regularly attends his duty in parliament, and, con- 
sequently, must be absent for several months, yet 
his works are carried on with the same spirit, and 
are the result of his own vigorous mind, which at 
that distance can judge of and direct every stage 
of the proceedings, without trespassing too much 
on the attentions he must necessarily pay to the 
senate, and those circles of fashion he is accus- 
tomed to move in. He has established races there, 
and preparations were making for the festivity 
which marks that season, there being a great deal 
of company expected, particularly gentlemen of 
the turf. No man seems to have consulted more 
the union of the utile dulci than Mr. Madocks; for 
I observed an avenue leading to a sort of Belvidere 
on the knoll in the midst of his new creation, that 
was contrived a " double debt to pay," having 
been, and capable of still being, a rope-walk 
likewise. The hard serpentine his hills are 
composed of, and of which he has an inexhaust- 
ible fund, he ships off for London as paving- 
stones ; so every thing is turned to account. After 



329 

retracing our road to the foot of the. bridge we di- 
verged from, we pursue that which leads towards 
Carnarvon, and rest that night at Bedd Celcrr, 
stopping time enough whilst our dinner was or- 
dered to explore the vicinity, which involves as 
many curious circumstances as any place I have 
yet visited within such a compass. Jones for the 
evening, having picked up several scarce plants, 
has sufficient to occupy him ; whilst, a prey to 
fear and hope till I receive letters, I have lost my 
relish for all enjoyments ; so stealing away unseen 
from the botanist I shall wish you a good night, 
and see what my pillow can do to compose me. 

Yours, <Scc. 



Bangor, June 14, 1SOS. 
MY DEAR CHARLES, 

Jones having a great desire to see the 
most accessihle of the mountains, passes, and 
lakes, prevailed on me to devote one day to 
such an excursion, as we were then at the base of 
Snowdon, and should not again be so conveniently 
situated for that purpose ; and I requiring some- 
thing new to divert my thoughts, we procured 
a guide and horses, and meant to penetrate 
as far into this region as our limited time would 
allow; but to describe what we saw requires a lan- 
guage I have yet to learn, or a pencil such as 
yours. It had rained hard in the night, so that 



330, 

every lake was full, and every Alpine stream a 
cataract: besides, the day was clear, and Snow- 
don and his attendants condescended to be un- 
covered. Our guide was a fisherman, and had his 
rod with him, which on one or two of the lakes he 
used successfully, whilst we were surveying the 
surrounding scenery ; Joues with a botanical eye 
leaving no crevice of the rocks unscrutinized. Our 
intention was to go to Bangor that night, where 
I had some expectation of meeting my attorney, 
and our route was so conducted as to give us time, 
after cursorily viewing this majestic scenery, to 
get there by night ; but we had no sooner left the 
recesses of the mountains, than the clouds began 
to collect, and threaten an approaching storm, 
which suddenly came on with such violence, at- 
tended by incessant thunder, lightning, and rain, 
that we were compelled to seek shelter; and fortu- 
nately about two hundred yards from the main 
road, in a sequestered little nook, above a torrent 
stream that roared beneath it, in the midst of fine 
young plantations, a neat cottage presented itself, 
which we made up to, and without much cere- 
mony, the fury of the tempest being our apology, 
alighting, begged to be housed from the rage 
of the elements : a gentleman of middle age most 
courteously desired us to walk in, and partake of 
such fare as his humble roof could afford, entreat- 
in p 1 us not to feel embarrassed, as he had a spare 
room double-bedded, and could accommodate our 
guide and the horses ; saying it was hopeless to ex- 
pect a change of weather so soon as to admit of our 

4 



331 

prosecuting our journey that night. From the ur- 
banity and heartiness with which the offer was 
made, we could see in a moment that any stiffness 
on our parts would have distressed him ; so we 
most thankfully accepted it: " Then," said he. 
" we have nothing more to do, than, by drawing on 
my stock of turf, to refresh our fire, and enjoy it ; 
but, Gentlemen, I presume you have not dined ; 
I have some fine fish which that young angler, 
my son, here," introducing us to him, " has this 
morning caught in a neighbouring lake, esteemed 
of fine quality, which with a fowl and a bit of 
bacon and some peas (early, you will say, for the 
mountains, but I am my own gardener), may be 
instantly got ready :" so having given the neces- 
sary orders for this repast, he returned, and pressed 
us to consider ourselves at home, and endeavour 
to forget that we were strangers : " You see me 
here a hermit, but though I have had some reasons 
for leaving the world, I do not profess to be a cy- 
nic, and shall to the last ' court the offices of sweet 
humanity.' If there is one gratification greater 
than another, it is to afford light to those who 
need it, to open the door to the benighted tra- 
veller; or by soothing kindness and seasonable 
counsel reclaim the mind that is gone astray, and 
correct its wanderings; from my peculiar situ- 
ation here I have had some practice in this way, and 
I have the conscious satisfaction to think that I 
have more than once contributed to the repose of 
the wayworn traveller, the wounded spirit, and 
the victim of sensibility. I have lived much in 



33% 

the world, and long enough to make me sick of 
it; have suffered from the instability of fortune 
and the delusion of friendship ; but, profiting by 
my follies and my inexperience, am got into port be- 
fore I was fairly wrecked, having had the resolution 
to retire before I had lost my relish for the enjoyment 
of happiness, and happiness I had to enjoy till the 
grave swallowed it up." The tear swelled in his 
eye ; he had struck a chord that was too moving, 
and instantly changed the strain, saying, " How 
thoughtless I am, gentlemen ! I should have asked 
you if you would have taken any thing before 
your dinner; I have mead of such strength as to 
merit the name of cordial, and in cases of extreme, 
fatigue or lowness of spirits I have known it ope- 
rate most wonderfully as a restorative ; and, per- 
haps, from your toil all day, and the agitation 
which the awfulness of the storm might have oc- 
casioned till you saw a place of shelter, you may 
require something." On our replying, that we 
were not in the habit of resorting to such aids, 
and taking this opportunity of giving a new turn 
to the conversation, we thought his countenance 
resumed a melancholy smile, which settled into 
apparent cheerfulness. His little parlour was a 
model of elegant neatness; it was hung round 
with a set of drawings from the pencil of the 
young gentleman, his son, of scenes in the neighs 
bourhood, in which was discovered a master's 
hand. The young draftsman was not then pre- 
sent, being gone to see that proper directions were 
given about the horses and guide, so that we were 



333 

lavish of our praises. His father said that lie was 
skilled in three things that were valuable resources 
in retirement : music, drawing, and angling. For 
his drawing, the specimens before them would best 
vouch ; of his music they might by and by have 
a proof, as well as of his angling, in the dish of 
trout that was preparing. He said, that of all ac- 
complishments drawing he ranked highest : in 
music the entertainment ends with the perform- 
ance ; and if you excel in it you wish for an au- 
dience ; a man is soon tired of gratifying his own 
ear ; whereas, in drawing you must be alone ; you 
want no company but your pencil, and when your 
work is over you leave something behind you. 
Our dinner was now announced; the trout was 
delicious, and we could not avoid remarking their 
colour, approaching to that of salmon in full sea- 
son. " This is nothing," said our host, " to what 
the fish of a more distant lake, which my young 
angler once visited, exhibit, of a much deeper 
red and higher flavour : and yet no wonder, when 
we trace the origin of this superior excellence by 
traditional lore. It is said, that in the first colo- 
nization of the country, the men of a certain 
mountain district, wanting the indispensable means 
of providing for population, women, in an adven- 
ture similar to the rape of the Sabines, forcibly 
seized the females of a neighbouring province, and 
carried them off; but being pursued, a bloody 
conflict took place, in which the ravishers fell, 
and the violated ladies, whose affections they had 
won, resolving not to survive their gallants and 



554 

their disgrace, in the glow of injured honour, a 
little subdued by the delicate blush of a softer 
passion, rushed into a neighbouring lake, 
which has ever since been called by a name 
commemorative of the event, Llyn y Morwynion, 
The Maidens Lake, where if they were not fairly 
metamorphosed into trout, they had the reputation 
at least of having given them their colour." After 
our repast, which was served up with the same 
neatness which characterized every thing that met 
our eye, we were treated with the finest ale I ever 
drank; thin, vinous, and flavoured in the brewage 
with lemon-peel ; and mead most excellent. " You 
see," said our host, " every thing is done in honour 
of Wales : Welsh ale ! Welsh mead ! and I am not 
without my Welsh harp, though no Welshman, — 
* sic honor et nomen TVallice.' " Then addressing 
himself to his son, he begged he would give us 
a national tune on the national instrument, which 
he mgst obligingly did, singing Welsh words 
(having learned that venerable language since he 
had been a resident here) to the air he played ; he 
likewise favoured us with some beautiful Scotch 
airs on his flute, which Jones says he managed in 
a superior style. The young gentleman having 
retired, which he did at an early hour, and a fresh 
pyre of turf laid, our host, with a frankness that 
seemed natural to him, let us a little into his his* 
tory, which, to avoid the prolixity of detail, he 
said he would beg our acceptance of a little pam- 
phlet, a few impressions of which, by the help of 
a small printing-press, which he and his son 
worked, lie had struck off, entitled, The History 



335 

of a Man disgusted with the World, if we would 
at our leisure condescend to look it over. Our 
conversation now became very various : we talked 
of the acquaintance formed at public schools be- 
tween men of different ranks, which very seldom 
outlived the school-days : our host saifl he 
never knew disparity of rank succeed in friend- 
ship or in love. He was a melancholy instance of 
its failure in the former : he was at a public school, 
Oxford, and the Temple, at which three places he 
had been in habits of the greatest intimacy with a 
few young noblemen and men of large fortune, 
some of whom he lived to see in power, and able 
to serve him ; but the instant he asked a favour 
they made a point to cut him, as they unmeaningly 
term it. There is now a little man with whom he 
had often mixed his commons, high in office, who 
swells to fill his situation, who scarcely deigns to 
recollect his name ; but to counterbalance such pi- 
tiful pride, there is a senator of no less eminence, 
an acquaintance of the same standing, who, after 
a lapse of twenty-two years, happening to meet 
him, took him by the hand with the same cor- 
diality as marked their Temple intimacy, un- 
changed, with his heart glowing at his fingers' 
ends, a rare instance, he must own, and therefore 
more to be valued. De minimis non curare seems 
to be a maxim, he believed, with statesmen as w ;:ii 
the law : " but commend me," says he, *' to the 
man who when at College, and his expenses, as 
there is generally the case, exceeded hi* ullowauce, 



oo 



*6 



and lie could not pay his taylor, gave him a sump- 
tuous dinner, and did not spare the wine, which so 
disarmed the man of the needle, that he could not 
think of pressing his demands, fresh indulgences 
being still purchased by fresh dinners. Yet when 
he came into administration, and had the keeping 
of the fountain of preferment, though he had long 
before honourably discharged all his debts, yet he 
remembered Snip and several of his other trades- 
men, by giving them small places. Such considera- 
tion in the midst of the most important state affairs, 
in my estimate, outweighs all the mock patriotism 

of these last fifty years, from W s to Sir F s 

B -tt, or the boasted talents of the late Pilot 

who weathered the storm, and his rival the Revo- 
lution historian. Before we parted in the morning 
I was struck with the sight of quill feathers stuck 
upright every where I cast my eye, through all 
his garden and little pleasure-ground; which, 
though nil admirari in general is my motto, I 
could not help noticing inquisitively. My host 
had heard that in his predecessor's time, a clergy- 
man, a man of learning too, who was in the habit 
of visiting the place, never passed a feather that 
occurred without immediately planting it in the 
earth, a ceremony he religiously observed on such 
occasions, and for which he never assigned any 
reasons ; mere superstition ! Our hermit host 
seemed to regret parting with us ; he said all part- 
inn* was painful to him, and he felt it in a greater 
decree every day. At Bangor we met the attor- 






337 

ney, but not the letters, expected. Another night 
of misery, then, is mine. 

Adieu, my dear Charles ; remember and pity me. 



Bangor, June 13, 180S. 
MY DEAR SIR, 

What I long dreaded has come to pass ; 
our friend this morning received letters full of 
alarm as to the state of her health for whom he 
lives ; and he has torn himself from me in a state 
of distraction, resolved instantly to set sail for 
Madeira. I offered him all the consolation I had 
to give, or that friendship could dictate; but 
" who can medicine to a mind diseased?" After 
the first paroxysm, summoning his fortitude, he 
became calm enough to have a letter of attorney 
'filled to empower me to complete the business he 
had to transact, and to make his will. He told 
me he had left us both trustees for his nephew, 
young Benson ; and as to publishing his Letters, 
as well as the contents of his Carmarthen manu- 
script, he left that totally to you and me, saying, 
he felt but little interest in any thing now. His 
fortitude then forsook him, his manly cheek was 
wet with tears, his heart was bursting. At last, 
grasping me by the hand, in an agony of conflict- 
ing passions, with " Remember me to O'Brien," 
which were his last words, he turned from me, 
never looked back, rushed into the chaise, and 

■ 



I ■ 
338 

drove off. I shall be here for at least a fortnight, 
before I can finish the business left me to accom- 
plish ; so I may hope to hear from you, and it 
would be but charity to endeavour to raise the de- 
pressed spirits of, dear Sir, 

Yours most sincerely, 

H. JoNES-. 



THE rNX>. 



ERRATA. 



Page 25, line 19, for lonely, read lovely* 

37, line 20, for way, read weigh. 

— — 77, line 12, make the same correction. 

. 90, line 1 5, insert end after east. 

— — 169, dele the full stop at the end of the last line. 

178, line 16, for Munarnawan, read Manama WaE* 

■ ■ 190, for waiste, read wriste. 

— — 252, line 5, after heads insert and. 



$. QwRAfci; frntv* JLitsIc; &ueea Stre&, 



